The Blog From Another Dimension: Main Archives

Officially Switching Over

This will be the last post on the Movable Type version of this blog. If you are reading this, and want to read the continuing and updated blog, then got to http://www.blogd.com/wp/. At least for a while, that is where the new blog will be located. I may leave it there indefinitely, or I may move it back to the main directory and erase the Movable Type blog at some point.

Comments are no longer possible on the Movable Type site. I have made a note of this on (I hope) every blog post I have. If you wish to make a comment on any post, please go to the new blog, do a search for the blog post in question, and leave your comment there. Unfortunately, due to post numbering issues, I cannot make automatic redirects to the corresponding pages in the new blog (if you know how, tell me!).

If you are reading this through a feed/RSS reader, then please go to the new main page and re-bookmark the RSS link. If I am not mistaken, it is feed://www.blogd.com/index.rdf

See you at the new site!

Anniversary

Last Sunday was the first anniversary of Sachi and I meeting. We took the morning off, and then celebrated in the evening.

I had been preparing for this for a while. Every three months since we met, I would get Sachi another three small stuffed dogs, from a line put out by a company that had a large variety of breeds, nicely crafted. So before this anniversary, she had nine little dogs. For this anniversary--a yearly thing instead of quarterly--I decided to go whole hog. I found stuffed dogs at several different places, finally having to go down to the Ginza to find one that I wanted to top things off.

Here's how I arranged it: when Sachi and I left for dinner, I made an excuse to run back in to the apartment (I intentionally left a fan running so I could go back and turn it off). That gave me the chance to leave the first present out on the dining room table: a small basket with two tiny stuffed dogs in it. Each of these came with a card with a note inside. When we came back from dinner, Sachi found the first dogs, and the note told her that the dogs "bigger brothers and sisters" were hiding under the bed because they were afraid of the fireworks.

This worked out really well, in fact: we unexpectedly got treated to two fireworks shows at dinner. We ate at a restaurant on the 58th floor of the Sunshine 60 Building, the view out the window looking down on our own building. It's a nice place, with multi-course dinners; reasonably priced, but food and service equivalent to a more expensive restaurant. We arrived at 6:30 and left at 8:30, which happens to be the time frame for fireworks in Japan during the summer. One show started to the northeast, relatively distant--but it was pretty big, and was nice to watch. But then another show started up a lot closer, and that was even nicer. Almost all the way through dinner we watched the shows. So when we came back, that first note "from" the two tiny puppies made sense in a way I had not intended.

In any case, the note with the first two puppies led Sachi to the drawer under the bed, where I had placed six stuffed dogs, of the same kind I had given her before (she now has 15 in total).

Their note gave clues as to where the next dog was "hiding," a floppily-stuffed yellow lab about a foot long. His note led to the back of the top shelf where we keep the towels, where I'd stashed his "bigger brother," a two-foot-long version of the same dog.

The note on that one led to their "even bigger brother," who was "hanging out in the closet." I had that rather large 3-foot stuffed dog--the biggest version of the same dog--suspended from the coat rack in a closet Sachi uses for winter-wear storage. That dog directed her to ask me for the final dog.

Sachi loves Shiba Inu dogs. They're kind of like small versions of huskies, the most common type being light brown with white underneath and some spots of white on the face. But finding stuffed Shibas is very hard. In Japan, Shibas are popular, but for some reason they don't make stuffed Shibas much--and when they do, they do them rather poorly. But at the Ginza store, I found a very nice stuffed Shiba puppy doll, which was perfect as the final gift.

The notes on each had more than just directions to the next dog, but that will remain private. Needless to say, Sachi enjoyed them thoroughly--but later, she mentioned that I had better stop getting her dogs, as we were quickly running out of places to put them.

The exercise also proved difficult in terms of setting it all up. The anniversary was Sunday evening, but after Friday afternoon I knew that Sachi and I would be together all the time--so I had to set them all up before then. The problem: we have a small apartment--not too many good hiding places--and they all had to be in places where Sachi would not find them by accident. I could not even steer her away from the hiding places all the time, because Saturday afternoon I was out for six hours at the graduation ceremony for my school, while Sachi relaxed at home. And even though I did find good places, it was almost undone when Sachi text-messaged me at the ceremony, asking where I had stored the ironing machine. I knew exactly where it was: right next to the medium-sized dog on the back of the top towel shelf. I had to tell her that she couldn't iron anything that afternoon.

Not that she was surprised; she figured that there would be stuffed dogs involved, and I've done the treasure-hunt game before. She just didn't know the extent I had gone to. As we went shopping before dinner, she speculated on how many dogs, what sizes, and so forth while I kept mum. She only guessed as high as three dogs, though--not twelve. I kept the secret pretty well.

Sachi, on the other hand, is not nearly as good at keeping secrets. Two of the three times she has gotten me gifts, she has accidentally blurted out what she got me. This time it was at Eddie Bauer, just before dinner, when we were looking at clothes I could buy. I mentioned that I should get some new short pants. Now, Sachi could have said something like, "the shirts you're getting today are enough for now," or "I know a better shop to go to for that," or something else which would not have roused my suspicions. Instead, she blurted, "I got you a pair already!"--and then was instantly annoyed that I had "made her" tell me what (part of) her present was. She couldn't be mad, of course, but for a while we had fun while I teased her about not being able to keep a secret well, while she just as kiddingly blamed me for tearing the secret out of her. (She told me lightheartedly that I was "ijiwaru," or being mean.)

It was a fun evening.

Salmon Delight

This one is a recipe that I remember from childhood. My mother used to make it for us, and I always liked it. Some years back, I got my mother to pass on the recipe to me, and figured that I might add it to the sparse number of recipes I've entered in this blog.

This dish basically makes a kind of salmon "cake," about 1" high in a 9" x 9" pan (I use a glass pan). It's a bit bready, a bit cheesy, but with a salmon overtaste with the spices adding to it... It's a delicious dish, hard to describe; you'll have to make it and see for yourself.

Here are the ingredients:

1 lb. canned salmon (450 g)
1 egg (large)
3/4 cup milk
1 cup soft bread crumbs
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon celery salt
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
1/2 cup dry bread crumbs
2 tablespoons melted butter

(pre-heat oven to 350˚ F, or 180˚ C--but not until about 10-15 minutes before baking)

The hardest part of this recipe is handled first: cleaning the canned salmon and flaking it. I get three 180-gram cans (Akebono Salmon). Now, when you get canned tuna, it's just the good part (as I recall). But canned salmon includes parts that some may find edible, but I certainly don't, including bones and skin. So you have to empty the canned salmon into a bowl and then, by hand, pick out the skin and bones, leaving the good, flaky salmon ready to be added to the rest of the recipe.

In the image below, I start with the canned salmon (top), pick out the skin and bones (middle right), and end up with a bowl of nice, flaked salmon (bottom).

Next, you'll want to measure out and set aside momentarily the soft bread crumbs and cheese. You'll note that I did not use just cheddar--I used crumbled mozzarella as well. I also use a bit more cheese than the recipe calls for. The extra cheese and the mozzarella add to the spongy, springy taste, to my liking. Actually, I use a few more bread crumbs than the recipe calls for also, but just a bit. You should compress the crumbs when measuring the cupful, by the way.

Now, put the egg and 3/4 cup of milk on a largish mixing bowl:

Add the bread crumbs, and then mix together (you can mix the egg and milk first if you like):

After you have the bread-egg-milk mixture, drop onto it the flaked salmon and cheese. Then add the tablespoon of lemon juice and the spices:

Personally, I use Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing Mix powder instead of garlic salt. I never make dressing from it--I just use it as a spice. It's mostly garlic and onion in a salt-powder mix anyway, and I like the taste better. I also use more than just a 1/2 teaspoon of it--usually a few teaspoons. It doesn't overpower--in fact, you can just taste it a bit, not too much, even in large amounts--but you can taste it, and I like the difference.

After you add the salmon, cheese, lemon juice and spices, then you get your hands dirty: reach in there and knead it until it's all spread around as well as you can get it. After this and the original cleaning, you'll have fishy-smelling fingernails for a bit--part of the cost of making the dish.

Now you're ready to prep the pan. I use a 9"-square glass pan myself--I don't know if the glass part is important or not. Smear some butter, margarine, shortening, or other pan-geasing item to the bottom 1" of the pan. It's also at about this time that I start pre-heating the oven, by the way.

Now, put the mix into the pan, flattening it out so that it's level, but don't compress it too much.

Next, put two tablespoons of butter or margarine into a frying pan and melt it; add the 1/2 cup of dry bread crumbs, and cook them in the butter, until they become golden brown or darker. You can use more bread crumbs than 1/2 cup if you want.

Then scatter the bread crumbs on top of the mix in the pan, as evenly as you can get it.

If your oven is now at the right temperature or close to it, put the pan into the oven and set your timer for 30 minutes. In Japan, actual ovens are a rarity; however, you can use a microwave/convection oven--it will serve as a nuke wagon, but you can also bake stuff in it. Highly recommended for living and cooking in Japan.

After 30 minutes, take it out and leave it to cool a little. I like to serve it with mashed potatoes, with some negi (green onions) mixed in.

Makes enough for at least three people, four or more if you spread it around more thinly. Serve with salad and whatever else you like. Is good reheated the next day as leftovers as well. Enjoy!

Big One

A very large earthquake just hit Niigata, and boy, did we feel it here on the 21st floor in Ikebukuro. It measured a high six on the Japanese scale. More soon.

Okay, a few minutes have passed. It looks like it was a 6.6 on the Richter scale, centered just off the coast of Niigata.

Let me elaborate about how it felt here. I was sitting here finishing up my morning Internet ritual, when I felt the swaying start. It was a weird sensation; unlike most quakes, where the swaying can be fairly quick, the swaying here on the 21st floor was very heavy, but slow and rolling, like being on a ship at sea. Nothing shook or rattled, but doors were definitely swaying several inches. It never felt like anything was ready to break or fall, but it did for a while feel like it was threatening to do so.

I called my brother, who lives maybe ten km away, and he reported similar feelings--that this quake swayed a lot more than usual, that it felt like a Japanese "3" but not a normal one. So we definitely felt it stronger here in the tower. The power felt a bit magnified, though Sachi did correctly class it as a "3" on the J-scale. What really got exaggerated here was the length--we felt this one roll for at least a few minutes, and it continued to sway for quite some time.

Makes me wonder, will a big, local quake feel the same? Will the power be magnified but the energy converted more to swaying than to jumping? Hrmm... not something you want tot think about, with your ability to flee so restricted.

Update: Looking at an animation (click image at right) of the effects of the quake, maybe we didn't feel the length exaggerated so much... it's interesting to take a look at. If the animation doesn't play in your browser, then right-click on the link here and download the target file.

Tax Time

For those of you Americans who live here in Japan, just a reminder that today is the last day you can file your taxes with the foreign earned income exclusion under the automatic two-month extension. So if you haven't filed for another extension already and you haven't sent in your tax forms, time is running short. Don't know how? No problem, here are the instructions that I wrote out three years ago. It has links to download the 1040 and 2555 forms, and a link to the 2006 annual average exchange rate (same link as the 2003 rate). As I stated then, I'm not a tax expert and you follow the instructions at your own risk. The forms are a bit outdated--the line numbers have changed a little--but with the illustrations, you can still follow it perfectly well.

43

At last I'm out of the "death" age. In Japanese, "42" can be pronounced "Shini," which is the same as "death." So I dodged a bullet there, having turned 43 a few days ago. (The age 33 is probably no better, being homonymous with "sanzan," or "misery" in Japanese--which is why there are no rooms 33 or 42 in Japanese hospitals, just like there are few or no 13th floors in the U.S.) Here is the proof of my passage: my birthday cake, which Sachi so kindly arranged:

For Japanese cake, it was excellent; Sachi said the bakery was famous in the area, and I don't doubt it. But Japanese cakes are made with whip-cream frosting; frosting based on powdered sugar and butter are pretty much unheard of in Japan--too sweet. Nevertheless, the cake was delicious, and even better was the message board--white chocolate... mmmmm....

We also had a nice couple of dinners. For my birthday, some fancy marbled steaks and Sachi's famous salad (or at least it should be famous)...

We did no worse tonight, two days later, with a very satisfying yakiniku layout, accompanied by another of Sachi's great salads:

But two nights ago, on my birthday, I got the real treat. As with most men in my family, I am notoriously hard to buy a present for. And yet, Sachi hit the whole gift thing nail-on-the-head, getting me a very cool new backpack. I swear, just the previous day, I had been saying to myself, time for a new backpack, but where can I find a good one? And there was Sachi, with just the answer.

I've got it sweet here.

Bits and Pieces, 5/25/2007

Idiots. Democrats caved and passed a full spending bill without any deadlines for withdrawal. I know that there never would have been enough votes to overturn Bush's inevitable veto, but they could have put up a fight that would have cost Bush dearly and weakened his hand. Instead, they just folded. Idiots.

Crooks and Idiots. The ever-greedy RIAA is now seeing about charging public radio to play songs. Talk about money-grubbig, not to mention biting the hand that feeds you. They got an artist to agree with them, saying, "They've gotten 50-some years of free play. Now maybe it's time to pay up."

The "idiot" part? Radio is not a free-play giveaway that radio stations have greedily stolen over the years. Instead, it is essentially a massive and completely free advertising campaign for the record labels. How the hell do you think people find out what kind of music they want to buy? They hear the music someplace free, and then they want to own it. (Which is why pirated music similarly boosts music sales.) The relationship between radio stations and music labels is symbiotic. In fact, in the past, music labels have paid off radio stations to play their tunes more than other labels' music.

Not to mention that public radio is probably i worse shape than the music labels right now, competing with now only pay radio but also the ever-expanding Internet with its explosion of podcasting and whatnot.

Asking public radio to pay for playing music is like me putting an ad in a money-strapped newspaper and demanding that they pay me for it. Idiots.

Damn. If rumors are correct, Apple will discontinue the Mac Mini. If they do that, I may lose my only chance to switch my school from Windows to Mac in a year or two--unless Apple comes out with another easy-to-be-a-switcher machine.

Hot Damn. Is George Lucas going to announce a seventh Star Wars movie on the 30th anniversary of the release of the first Star Wars movie tomorrow? (Today in Japan, but we're from the future.) Maybe, maybe not. But Lucas has talked about a Star Wars movie or two in order to kick-start a TV series... and let's face it, almost any Star Wars movie will likely bring in so much money at the box office that Lucas would have to be an idiot not to go that route, as long as he's making a 2-hour Star Wars film.

For Sale

Are you in Tokyo? Want to buy a fridge? A washer-dryer? Two microwave ovens? A nice fan-driven gas heater? A gas range? One or two rice cookers? A sofabed? A one-person western-style bed? Maybe a desk or two? Various other pieces of furniture? A vacuum cleaner? Various and sundry other household items?

Let's talk.

This is what happens when two people move in together: you tend to have an entire apartment's worth of appliances and furniture left over.

I'll likely place ads in the Daily Yomiuri and the next issue of Metropolis. Ye gads, I forgot what a pain this kind of thing is. How do you ship out all that stuff? Takkyubin will cost half as much as what we can sell the items for...

Oh yeah, a satellite dish for Sky Perfect TV with a huge balcony brace? Anyone? Anyone? Ferris?

Five weeks hardly seems like enough time already....

Bits and Pieces, May Day

Here's a Shocker: more Republican corruption with ties to the Bush family.

• A company called Moving Water Industries (MWI) won a $32 million contract to sell drainage pumps for use in New Orleans.
• The pumps have since proven to be defective.
• When bids for the project were taken, specifications were given. It turns out that those specs were copied from the MWI catalog, "typos and all," as a way of ensuring that MWI got the contract.
• MWI used to employ now-Florida-governor Jeb Bush, and has strong ties to the Republican Party.

Surprise!

Yet another piece of evidence that the White House, and especially Condi Rice, had a great many significant warnings about 9/11 beforehand and ignored it. George Tenet, formerly willing to take the blame, now asserts that he had a briefing with Condi Rice in July 2001 where he told her that "There are going to be multiple, spectacular attacks against the United States. We believe these attacks are imminent," and that "We need to consider immediate action inside Afghanistan now."

Rice's response: "I don’t know what we were supposed to pre-emptively strike in Afghanistan."

Umm.. maybe, I dunno, Osama bin Laden? Remember how Bill Clinton tried to pre-emptively strike bin Laden in Afghanistan and was castigated by Republicans for it, who blamed him for trying to wag the dog and take attention away from more pressing matters like Monica Lewinsky?

Democrats may very well end up picking up even more House seats than expected next election, and probably Senate seats as well. Why? Well, partly because Democrats in Congress are doing notably well in the polls. But even more so because Republican have such a bad image that their party is more and more considered to be a "toxic climate." Fewer people are willing to identify themselves as "Republicans," and it doesn't help that even after the 2006 drubbing, congressional Republicans are still supporting Bush with their voting records, and are still voting down highly popular measures such as the minimum wage hike, Medicare negotiation for drug prices, and an exit from the Iraq War.

This is probably best evidenced by the fact that the Republican Party is failing to get their top candidate picks for 2008 congressional races to sign on, and that Democrats are doing a better job fundraising than the GOP--a reversal of past trends.

Learned a new word: IOKIYAR. Acronym for: It's OK If You're A Republican. Referring, of course, to the common Republican double standard of condemning Democrats for certain things, but at the same time forgiving Republicans who do the exact same thing.

I agree--this is just creepy. Does Condi really feel this way about her husb--er, I mean, her president?

On Gun Control and the Virginia Tech Shootings

As I mentioned last night, I am getting a lot of hits from Google for my blog post on gun control in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings. There has also been some talk about the topic in public.

I am pro-gun control, but I do not feel that incidents like the one at Virginia Tech are germane to the issue. Gun control is mostly about firearm safety and making it more difficult for criminals to arm themselves; gun control also acts as a net to catch wanted criminals or known felons who attempt to purchase firearms.

The Virginia Tech shootings, like most other such rampages, really don't apply to this issue one way or the other. While they increase our awareness of the issue and perhaps spur people to push for better gun control, they are not the kind of incidents that can really be prevented with better gun control.

According to reports so far, both guns were purchased legally; the shooter did not have a criminal record aside from a single speeding ticket. While he had a record of depression and other psychological difficulties, it was not so severe that any regulation of sales to a mentally ill individual would apply. Virginia even has a relatively strict law about how often you can buy firearms, limiting purchases to one per month; from what I gather, the shooter bought one gun in February, and the other in March. He bought handguns, not assault rifles or semi-automatics, if I understand the description of the weapons correctly. Virginia police destroy records of gun purchases after 30 days, in an apparent sop to the gun lobby. But it would not have made a difference had they kept the record on file for longer. Concealed weapons permits would also not apply, unless the shooter happened to be searched by police or security people between leaving his dorm room and arriving at the scene of the crime.

In short, this is the kind of incident that just doesn't apply to the argument. Even a complete, nationwide gun ban would not necessarily stop this kind of violence.

That is not to say that gun control would not work; just as it would have yesterday or ten years ago, sensible gun control could stem a good deal of violence and crime.

Just not stuff like this.

Sachi's Niku-negi Tofu

This is the recipe that Sachi invented, the one I mentioned last week. It's a simple dish that should take no more than 15 minutes to produce; however, a few of the ingredients may not be available to those of you outside Japan, unless you have a good Oriental Foods section at your local supermarket, or have a store specializing in such goods nearby you. If not, then you'll have to fudge on a few of the ingredients. But if you can do it, this is a fairly cheap, pretty simple, and very delicious dish. I was lucky enough to have Sachi make it for me tonight, and chronicled the process.

The recipe below is proportioned for one person; just multiply for each additional guest. Sachi cooked for two below. Enjoy!

Ingredients (per person served):

• 1 package / 300g Tofu (soft, white variety)
• 150-200g ground hamburger (any other ground meats can be substituted, if you want to try)
• 1 bunch green onions ("negi")

The following are approximate amounts; you may change to suit taste:

• pinch of red peppers
• 1 tsp. Kim-chi sauce or other hot sauce
• 1 ¹/₂ tsp. Mirin (a Japanese cooking saké), or sweet white wine
• 5-6g sugar (you can use a sugar packet for coffee, or two depending on the size)
• 2-3 tsp. Tsuyu sauce (soy sauce which contains "dashi"; you may add soup bouillon to soy sauce instead)

Directions:

Unpack the tofu, drain liquid, and wrap in paper towels to dry; set aside.

Rinse green onions, cut off and dispose of the root ends, and chop into ¼-inch lengths. Rinse again in colander; set aside (this will look like a lot, but will shrink with cooking).

Put ground hamburger into an non-oiled fry pan; cook on medium-to-high flame until it changes color to brown (not dark brown). After that, keep the flame on medium.

If you prefer the mix to be not-so-fatty: Segregate the hamburger to one side of the pan, then tilt the pan to drain some (but not all) of the fat; collect with a paper towel, which you throw out.

Add the green onions;

Add a pinch of red peppers, and then start mixing;

Add 1 or more teaspoons of Kim-chi sauce or other hot sauce of your liking, mix;

Add 2 teaspoons of Mirin or wine, mix;

Add sugar; mix.

Add 2-3 teaspoons of Tsuyu sauce or Soy/bouillon sauce, and mix.

Taste what you have so far to see how it's going; add whatever of the ingredients you feel needs to be added.

Unwrap the tofu from the paper towels, and hold in your hand. Be careful--it'll fall apart easily! Using a knife, gently cut the tofu down the center, then across its width five times, so you have 12 slices; place on a plate and stagger them a bit. You may heat the tofu in the microwave if you prefer a completely hot dish; otherwise, it will be a hot/cool dish (which I prefer).

Then just dish the hamburger-negi mix onto the tofu.

Done!

Eat with a spoon, and have it with beer, sake, shochu, or wine. You might want to add a salad. Yummy!

Sachi Spoils Me

Today, I had a bit of an upset stomach, so Sachi and I agreed that we should eat light--a simple salad, that's all. This is what Sachi cooked up:

Sorry the photo is a bit washed out; it doesn't do the dish justice. The thing is, for Sachi, this is a "quick and simple" dish. Every meal she makes she calls "simple," no matter how elaborate. I try to do my share of the cooking, but in sheer talent and the number of different meals one can produce, she's got me beat hands-down (though I do make a mean salmon casserole, and can serve up steak with the best of 'em). But really, there's no contest.

Sachi has this one original dish that floors me every time. It's a simple dish of ground hamburger and veggies (mostly negi, or green onions), cooked in a mix of spices, and then poured on top of diced tofu. It may not sound like much, but it's one of the best dishes I know.

Unfortunately, I don't have a photo of that, but here's another random sample of a "simple" dinner by Sachi:

Seriously, I gotta watch out or I'm gonna gain weight again.

To Upgrade, or Not To Upgrade

One and a half years ago, I made the decision to buy a new 1.67 GHz G4 PowerBook, even though it had just been announced that Apple would switch to Intel. Part of that decision was based upon the announcement that the transition would begin one year later and might take another year before all the models had made the switch; that meant a potential 2-year wait for a high-end laptop to come out.

Another part of the decision has to do with my standard 3-year turnover with such purchases, and the idea that early adopters sometimes get burned with problems in the new hardware. I decided that if I bought a PowerBook G4 in June 2005, I would then wait 1-2 years for a new Intel model to come out, then another year or so for the second-generation model to be released, and that would mean a smooth transition.

One other factor that motivated me was that I was, at the time, stuck with an 800MHz PowerBook G4 that was way too slow for me, and was itching to upgrade. So I made the decision to go for the 1.67 GHz G4.

Well, Apple switched to Intel way faster than anyone anticipated; in fact, the MacBook Pro was one of the first new Intel models to come out, in January of 2006, just six months after my purchase. Furthermore, there were no significant reports of problems with the new hardware, so early adopters weren't really burned.

So, a year after the MacTels came out, I'm saddled with a G4 PowerBook that will have to last me for another year and a half. Not the first wrong move I've ever made, that's for sure.

But just yesterday, I came across an article that caught my attention. The story was on the excellent resale value of Macs, something that helped me make the decision to get this G4 PowerBook in 2005: I was able to sell my aging 800 MHz machine for ¥80,000, which subsidized maybe 30% of my new purchase. My current PowerBook now has a resale value of $975. At almost the same time as I found the first article, I saw a report on refurbished MacBooks, where a top-of-the-line black MacBook model is selling for $1300. That got me to thinking. A refurbished MacBook with a new 1-year warranty could very easily outshine my old, out-of-warranty PowerBook, and it would cost me a lot less than a brand-new computer would.

Hmmm...

Of course, there's more to it than that. The models are fairly different from each other. I'd have to give up my 15" screen for a 13.3" one; however, the smaller screen would have nearly the same resolution, and perhaps better contrast & brightness, so that's kind of a wash. The MacBook has no PC Card slot, which for me is a bit of a big thing as I always use that to load my digital camera images via a Compact Flash card reader. However, I could just bite the bullet and start using the camera-to-computer USB cable like most people use (I just don't like to carry cables around). The new MacBook also has an inferior graphics card (an Intel GMA 950 versus the G4's Radeon 9700--I think the Radeon is much better, I'll have to research that). The MacBook has fewer ports, but none that I'd miss; the FireWire 800 port is the only one not matched, and I never use that anyway. Also, the MacBook's DVD burner is 6x speed, as opposed to the G4's 8x--a difference I'd hardly notice--just as I'd never use the MacBook's dual-layer option.

These disadvantages are minor, however, compared to the plusses of the MacBook. First, it has a 2.0 GHz Core 2 Duo processor, which is a huge leap ahead of the 1.67 GHz G4. The MacBook also sports a 4MB L2 cache and 667 MHz system bus, compared to the G4's weak-ass 512 KB cache and 167 MHz bus. The hard drive is bigger (120GB vs. 80GB). The MacBook also comes with an iSight camera, one of those magnetic power adaptors, and might even have the upgradable WiFi-n option (I'd have to look that up as well). The MacBook is also smaller and a little lighter.

Additionally, the ability to run Windows using Parallels would be a huge thing, as I teach Windows in my Computer course and XP under Virtual PC on an aging G4 just isn't cutting it. Using Parallels would be a major improvement for me.

The MacBook comes with Apple's crappy new 2-chip RAM arrangement, with 1 GB built-in, meaning that if I want to match my current 1.5 GB of RAM, I'd have to shell out close to $90 for a 1GB replacement chip, or $180 if I wanted to go for 2GB (which is likely).

SofMap says that they would pay ¥108,000 ($900) for the G4 I have now. That's their top range and could be reduced if they find anything they don't like, but this machine is in good shape and even has an extra GB of RAM inside. If I tried to sell the computer through ads, I might get an extra ten thousand yen or two.

The refurbished MacBook is $1400 including tax. Add $70 for shipping from the U.S., and $180 for new RAM, and it comes to a whopping $1650. That would make the difference $750 (or $590 to $670 if I can get a better price by selling via an ad)--more than a thousand dollars less than the same un-refurbished MacBook would cost with the same configuration ($1812, add $70 for shipping).

This idea has occurred to me just now, and this blog post is kind of a part of my rumination process on the issue; I am still pretty far from making a final choice, and have some looking-into to do (e.g., are there refurbished MacBooks here in Japan and for how much, etc.). I'd love your feedback as well, of course, and any alternate ideas or information.

Bits & Pieces, January 14, 2007

An 8.2-magnitude earthquake hit the islands north of Japan yesterday. It was big enough to cause a great worry about tsunami, but eventually the warnings were called off when the highest waves seen were only 40 cm high and there were no reports of injuries or damage. Sachi and I went to an Indian restaurant after getting back from the dog walk, and they had NHK (with English) turned on, and they were focused on the story. It sounded scary at the time. And it does make you think: that earthquake could just as easily have hit Tokyo instead of hitting a sparsely-populated area up north.

An interesting look at Schwarzenegger over at C&L, talking about how he has shifted notably to the left. I still am strongly disapproving of the way he came into office--a "recall" election (solely created for the purpose of clearing out someone who did terrible things after an election) used to invalidate an election held only months before. And then Arnold moved in a host of Republican cronies, and tried to push a spate of "reform" initiatives that could have pushed California much farther toward being a red state. There were measures that were specifically aimed at decimating Democratic Party influence and power in the state--specifically, redistricting to favor Republicans, throwing up roadblocks to keep unions from participating in politics, and attacking teacher tenure (both unions and teachers being major Democratic backers).

But after his resounding defeat and then the loss of control by Republicans in Congress, Arnie now seems chastised to the point of becoming halfway reasonable. After losing the initiative fight, he hired a Democrat as his chief of staff, which brought howls of anger from Republicans, not to mention threats of stripping his party endorsement (Kennedy is still in that position today, but I don't see Republicans throwing Arnold out of the party). And now Arnie is pushing a raise in emissions standards as well as universal health care--both pet Democratic issues.

So, are right-wingers still as vibrantly enthusiastic today about amending the Constitution to allow Schwarzenegger to become president as they were a few years ago? Something tells me that they're not.

A lot of people have been wondering why Apple would stick to the "iPhone" brand name since the name is owned by Cisco Systems; it would seem a stupid move to invest so much publicity in the name before an agreement could be worked out with Cisco. After all, why invest so much in a name someone else still owns? You'd just be making their case for demands even stronger. You'd be begging for a lawsuit, and why bog down a new product with such legal problems when you have a team of imaginative marketing experts who can think up other cool names?

Well, it turns out that Apple may have done this because Cisco might not own the name, after all. A close read of this article explains how Cisco has probably lost the trademark because they did not use the name for a long time, and probably did not renew the trademark legitimately. If their trademark did indeed lapse, then it would go to Ocean Telecom Services LLC, a firm many people believe is a front company for Apple. Additionally, it appears that several other companies also use the "iPhone" name for their products.

So maybe Apple isn't so dumb after all.

Four down, two to go. Congress passed a bill to help lower drug costs to seniors by using Medicare's huge purchasing power to negotiate with drug companies. Enough Republicans opposed this to block a veto-proof majority (only 24 Republicans joined the entire Democratic block), which shows you how bought out they are--after all, Republicans are all about a free market system, right? Let the market decide, let people negotiate... except when they want to benefit their super-rich corporate backers.

Even if Bush vetoes this (as promised threatened) and Democrats force another veto-breaking vote which fails, it will be a huge public relations boon for the Democrats: we support the people, but Bush and the GOP favor far less the people than they do huge corporations which make massive, usurious profits from seniors and taxpayers.

Every one of these 100-Hours issues are supported by a strong majority of Americans. Makes me wonder what the Republicans think they're doing. Maybe they figure that no one will remember two years from now. I'm guessing that the few dozen House Republicans that voted with Democrats on the last few close votes are ones who are ones who will face very close battles in the next election.

Bush has pretty successfully claimed the right to tap your phone calls without a warrant, and to read your mail. Now this administration is looking at your bank records as well. Not that this should be news to you, or surprise you in the least.

Aren't Republicans supposed to be against this kind of thing? From debating gun control with right-wingers, I have heard the argument countless times about why we should avoid gun registration lists because the Nazis used them someplace in WWII to confiscate guns, and if the U.S. government ever became fascist, they would do the same thing here. Well, the U.S. government is slowly but clearly turning fascist, and for some reason the same people who made the argument about gun registration have no problem at all with this level of government spying on citizens. Nor do they seem too bothered by the government suspending habeas corpus, and holding citizens in jail without a charge (and without their guns!). Which kind of demonstrates how fake the whole argument was in the first place.

But you would still expect right-wingers, who profess to be so strident about getting government out of our lives, to vehemently oppose such intrusions. I can only guess that they are so frightened by the specter of terrorism that they feel it is perfectly OK for our own government to do this kind of stuff.

Or perhaps the whole get-the-government-off-our-backs philosophy is yet another fake argument used to cover for a more specific agenda like tax cuts. That does seem to be a common practice for right-wingers--to claim a greater philosophical belief to make a more specific, but less-defensible position seem more legitimate. This is done with the philosophy of strict constructionism as a cover for a pro-life and anti-civil-rights agenda, just as the "smaller-government" argument philosophy only serves to cover for a stance against Social Security as well as many other Democratic-favored social welfare programs. But when it comes to issues that Republicans favor, these overriding principles suddenly become irrelevant.

Bits and Pieces, January 7, 2007

Israel is planning to use tactical nuclear weapons to destroy Iran's own nuclear weapons program. That should settle things down in the Middle East.

Demonstrating their desire to be responsible and accountable, the White House shifted recording of White House visitors from the Secret Service logs to the presidential records, so as to hide them from Freedom-of-Information-Act filings. Such information requests were used by Republicans to help uncover the Monica Lewinsky visits to the White House--precisely the scandal Bush claimed he would avoid to "restore honor and dignity to the White House." Yes, it is true that no scandals about Bush getting a blow job have been unearthed, but a host of other scandals have instead. I suppose that hiding such scandals could be considered more "dignified" than being caught committing them, but how it is more "honorable" is beyond me.

Dammit, I did it again--listened to CNN for more than a few minutes. This time what sent me over the edge was picture painted of Washington D.C., where Bush was represented as "bipartisan" and "conciliatory," trying hard to "work with" Democrats, while the Democrats "couldn't resist" going partisan, while at the same time having no hope of getting their "first 100 hours" achieved, as they have no ability to actually do anything, while Bush has an "arsenal" that includes the veto, Republican filibusters, conservative Democrats, etc. Damned liberal media.

On the non-political side of things, Hitachi is going to release a 3.5" 1 TB drive (as opposed to the multi-drive versions that have been on sale for some time), breaking the Terabyte barrier--and it'll sell for less than $400. And here I was, thinking I got a deal on a $240 500 GB drive....

Meanwhile, Apple is gearing up for the Big Event--the MacWorld Expo, where The Steve will present The Keynote. That'll be on January 9th at 9 am Pacific time--or 2 am on the 10th for here in Japan, as usual. Suspected announcements: 8-core Desktop Macs and maybe other CPU upgrades, the iPhone, iTV, a possible full-screen touch-controlled iPod, and a full unveiling of Mac OS X 10.5, Leopard, including iLife '07 and iWork '07, the latter including a new spreadsheet app which should round out the productivity suite. Engadget had the best reporting at the last Apple event, followed by MacRumors and TUAW.

A Note on the "War on Christmas" from the Front Lines

I am currently in the San Francisco Bay Area to visit family and friends for the holidays. One could call this area the deepest reaches of liberal secular culture within the United States, and, as such, the front lines of the War on Christmas (™ and © Bill O'Reilly).

The radio waves are saturated with Christmas tunes singing of Christ Our Lord, Christmas decorations abound with armies of mangers, people are going to church to celebrate Christmas mass, and signs and colors of Christ are everywhere.

Maybe it's just me, but the whole "War on Christmas" thing seems a lot more like conservatives who get 99% of what they want whining like spoiled children because they can't have that last little tiny bit and deny others even the smallest of crumbs.

This is not to complain about Christmas. I just had a very nice evening with family last night around the Christmas tree, and am very much enjoying the scenery and the holidays. I have said "Merry Christmas" so many times in the past few days, and will again in years to come.

Let's just not try to claim that Christmas is in peril or anything, okay? So, as I listen to Bing on KBAY and enjoy the day off with my girl in a house on an avenue decorated by festive lights, Merry Christmas to all.

New Bike

Partly from a desire for more exercise combined with a need for a good mode of transportation for local birdwatching, I bought a new bike a few days ago, and took it out for the first big spin today. I went birdwatching in Tama Reien (for those who haven't read this blog and/or don't know, Tama Reien is a huge cemetery smack in the middle of Tokyo Prefecture, a large, quiet area with lots of small streets and lanes and foliage, great for birdwatching). On the map, Tama Reien looked almost too far for biking, but apparently Tokyo is smaller than it looks like on maps; it took only about 30-40 minutes and was a nice little trip.

I started looking for a bike a week or two ago, and started at the little shop within the large supermarket/home center just down the block from my place (and practically the only real store for a mile in any direction). They had a few bikes that were close to what I wanted. Most of the bikes were too simple--cheap little 1- or 3-speed bikes, not great for this very hilly area--or were too much--expensive 16-speed bikes with narrow seats. A few were mid-priced 6-speed bikes, and one looked especially good: for about $140 it included a kind of lamp that didn't drag on your front wheel (I hate those things). Instead the engine for the lamp is made of magnets within the front wheel axle, a "no touch" light. Cool.

The problem was, the bike's frame was low, made that way for people who are short even by Japanese standards. I could fit on it, but only with the seat and handlebar extended fully. But by "trying it on" in the narrow store area for bikes, I found that if I were on the bike and made a turn while my leg in the direction of the turn was at its highest point, the handlebar would collide with my knee and the turn would be limited. So I went to a few other bike shops within biking distance--only to find that no one had anything close to what I wanted, or at nearly the price my local shop had. So on Saturday evening, I went in to reserve it--and it was gone. A new one would take 2 weeks to order, and I wanted to get this out of the way.

After much gnashing of teeth and consideration, I decided to buy the $120 version of the bike with the drag-lamp I really don't like--and only then noticed that they had put a few bikes out in the aisle that I hadn't seen before. Usually $190, they were on sale for that day only for $150, and had the features I wanted--6 speeds, the no-touch lamp--and these were regular frames, not to mention they simply looked more well-built (and it had a extra device to lock the front wheel in place). There were three, and a man and his two kids were all over them, with the attitude of "we're buying these!" Hoping against hope, I asked their intentions, and they said they only wanted two of the three--and the one left over was the one I had been eyeing. So without any further delay, I put the money down and bought the thing.

After midnight, I'll blog on the birdwatching I got done with the bike today.

100 Things

I have seen these lists before (they've been around for years) and was sometimes tempted to do one, but knew it would be a bear of a job. But then Shari did one on the 1st, "Roy" got his done by the 2nd, and Sean turned his in on the 3rd, and I kind of figured, why not jump on the bandwagon. Paul, you're next.

1. I was born in Mountain View, CA, but grew up initially in Cupertino, not far from the future site of Apple Computer headquarters.
2. Half of my left ear was bitten off by a Saint Bernard when I was seven years old; plastic surgeons reattached the ear, but skin grafts left scars behind my ear and on my abdomen (don't ask me why the latter, I don't know).
3. During childhood, I wanted to be an astronomer; I owned two telescopes, including an 8-inch reflector.
4. As a child, my favorite color was yellow, but now it is green (preferably dark green).
5. As a child, I was a birdwatcher and a member of the National Audubon Society.
6. The first movie I ever saw was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
7. I was a huge Star Wars fan when I was a kid and saw the movie more than 18 times in theaters.
8. I was voted "Most Creative" in high school.
9. I was badly bullied in school, and once even had to transfer to another school due to the problem.
10. When I was 13, I burned my retina in my right eye looking at the sun too long (it's a small spot and doesn't appear unless I look only with that eye).
11. I was quite non-social in high school, from being both socially shy and more than a bit goofy.
12. In high school and early college, I used to paint and do other creative stuff; not so much any more.
13. To this day, I hate going to discos or dance clubs (especially because of the sound levels).
14. During high school, I worked part-time at Green Library at Stanford University, and as a Stanford worker, was able to submit several political cartoons to the Stanford Daily newspaper.
15. My favorite candy is See's (a West-coast chocolatier), and in high school, I used to scarf down about a pound a week.
16. I began studying Japanese language in college partially because of an interest in Japan, and partially because a Japanese major did not involve Math.
17. My usual part-time work during college was in movie theaters, which didn't pay well, but gave me lots of free time between shows and got me free tickets to any movie theater in the area.
18. I once sued an employer (a shady movie theater operator) for unpaid overtime in small claims court; I won the case and successfully had the money (about $600) removed from their bank account by a deputy sheriff.
19. My first trip overseas was to Japan in 1983 when I was 19 years old.
20. I was the president of the Japanese Club in college, which is to say that I was the least non-motivated of three people in showing Japanese movies to the local community (but it looks good on my resume).
21. During college, I shared a car with my brother: a tiny, underpowered Datsun L1200 which actually made us money because people kept rear-ending the car and the insurance paid more than we spent on repairs.
22. My most serious traffic accident was when an 80-year-old man ran a stop sign in a giant Cadillac and I broadsided him; the Caddy was only slightly dented, but the Datsun L1200 was totaled.
23. I first went to live and work in Japan in 1985.
24. I have lived in Japan for a total of fifteen and a half years; the first two of those years I lived in Toyama (a countryside area on the Japan Sea coast), and the other 13 1/2 years have been in Tokyo.
25. I have lived in five different apartments while in Tokyo (in Asagaya, Tachikawa, Koganei, Nakano, and Inagi).
26. I have climbed Mt. Fuji to see the sunrise three times.
27. My first job in Japan was with a local branch of the YMCA, where I was cheated out of 70,000 yen of earnings.
28. I decided to pursue a college career in Japan when I saw the job possibilities while I was in Toyama.
29. I studied and got a special drivers license for small motorcycles (up to 125 cc) while in Toyama, and toured the mid-Honshu region on a Honda motorcycle.
30. I have an A.A. and B.A. in Japanese, and an M.A. in English (concentration in TESOL).
31. I presently work as a professor in an American college in Tokyo.
32. Two points which are very obvious to anyone who reads this blog: I am an avid Mac user and a liberal Democrat.
33. When I go to eat sushi, I only order tuna (maguro or toro).
34. I have recently started birdwatching again (also obvious to blog readers).
35. I enjoy digital photography and digital movie editing.
36. I love the smell of coffee but not the taste.
37. Since August 2, 2003, I have blogged every day (1192 days to this date), making this my most persistent hobby.
38. I am a pack rat, but once every year or two manage to get myself to throw out large amounts of stuff.
39. I don't like living in small, crowded apartments, even if it means a long commute to avoid them.
40. I am not a great fan of classic literature, and have not read very much.
41. I hate loudspeaker trucks (common in Japan, even not during elections).
42. My favorite drink is root beer; my favorite snack is sunflower seeds, though the salt is too much for my tongue if I eat too many.
43. I am mildly diabetic (type 2); when I found out in January this year, it was after a junk food binge and period of inactivity that made my doctor believe I was about to keel over because of my blood sugar levels (I had an A1C of 9.9; it's now hovering around a healthy 5.3).
44. For the last two years, I have been immobilized by illnesses at Christmastime; two years ago, it was a serious nosebleed, and last year, it was a broken foot; everyone is wondering what it will be this year.
45. My musical tastes include classic rock and movie soundtracks, which predominate the 3500 or so tracks I have on iTunes.
46. I have a fairly good musical sense, but cannot play any instrument or even sing very well.
47. With very few exceptions, I don't like horror movies.
48. Before buying any expensive items, I try to make myself wait for two weeks to protect myself from impulse buying.
49. My Japanese language skills have reached a plateau where everyday conversation is possible but it would take a lot of effort to improve.
50. I have ideas for writing several stories, possibly books, but never get around to writing them.
51. I hate entertainment based upon the humiliation or exposure of others.
52. I love Akira Kurosawa films, especially his earlier funnier ones; my favorite movie is The Seven Samurai.
53. It's hard for me to start new habits or try new things; it's also hard for me to get started on projects, though once I get started, it's hard to stop me.
54. I have a horseshoe (conjoined) kidney.
55. When alone, I am a night owl, often staying up until three or four in the morning; around others, I conform to their sleep schedules fairly easily.
56. I no longer even miss newspapers or magazines.
57. With very few exceptions (e.g., butterflies), I absolutely hate insects.
58. Every few years I experience an ocular migraine.
59. I hate wearing neckties, and avoid doing so at every opportunity.
60. I wear clothes more for functionality rather than style; as an example, I don't wear suspenders because they look good (they often draw ridicule, in fact), I wear them because on my body type, a belt doesn't do the trick.
61. I have a terrible memory for faces and names, not that my memory in other respects is stellar.
62. In my younger days, I used to be frightfully nervous about speaking before groups; teaching cured me of that.
63. While taking care of me one time when I was about ten, my grandmother gave me a hit off her cigarette; I took a puff but (wisely) did not inhale. That was my one and only experience with using tobacco, and I despise the stuff today.
64. I have well over 500 VHS tapes in my apartment, mostly aggregates of tapes sent by my father over the years (he used to record all the favorite shows my brother and I liked and sent them to Japan); as I now have most of the media on my DVD collection and never watch the VHS tapes anyway, they are all headed for the trash.
65. I have trouble reading almost all political fiction; even when I agree with it, it tends to come across as simplistic and too heavy-handed.
66. I could care less about people's sexual activities and preferences; I care more about how they treat other people.
67. I don't wear hats or caps, but will if someone asks me and I feel like it.
68. I try not to collect things because I never do anything with them.
69. I love small gadgets but ironically have very few of them.
70. I love having a view out my apartment window.
71. I hate entering text information using only a numeric keypad.
72. The white-collar job I would least want to have would be selling something I don't like; after that, any repetitive, mindless task.
73. I have been bumped up to business class twice, to first class never.
74. With the exception of a trip when I was an infant, I have never been anywhere in the continental U.S. save for the three West Coast states (although I have traveled extensively in Japan and have visited China, Korea, Spain, and Hawaii).
75. When I was younger, people thought I was a lot older than I was; now, people think I am a bit younger than I am.
76. I hunt-and-peck pretty quickly, and can't touch-type.
77. I am an agnostic with leanings toward deism; there are, however, some religious concepts that I confidently disbelieve in, such as the existence of hell, god having human form, or that the Bible is the literal word of god.
78. I save my favorite part of the meal for last on my plate so I can enjoy it at the end, and hate it when people assume I don't like that part and grab it without asking.
79. Dave Barry once wrote about excruciatingly embarrassing moments in life that pop unwanted into your consciousness at random times; that happens to me a lot.
80. My experience with non-prescription drugs is limited to relatively sparse and sporadic alcohol consumption and two attempts at smoking marijuana as a teenager.
81. I sweat way too easily.
82. If I receive really bad service, I usually forsake the company involved, at least for a few years' time and sometimes longer.
83. When I leave my apartment, I usually have to come back up half a flight of stairs and make sure that I really did lock the door.
84. You know how most people in Asia seem to be able to squat and have their heels touch the ground? I can't do that.
85. I can be calm and patient about a lot of big things, but accumulated small stuff gets to me, as does anyone who I can see is purposefully trying to scam me.
86. I have a very low opinion of people who want to widely distribute their work but are too lazy to provide proper documentation.
87. I like chocolate and I like nuts, but not together.
88. I have no tattoos.
89. If you're still reading this list, you've earned the right to know that I have bathroom shyness; happy?.
90. I have passed the age where I can go a night without sleep and not fall asleep during the middle of the next day.
91. If I had to get a car, any car, cost notwithstanding, I think I'd like a Prius.
92. I love time travel stories, but there are too many where a guy crushes a bug and it turns out to be him in the end, so don't do that one again.
93. My favorite food is bacon, if you can legitimately call it "food."
94. During a three-month period early in college, I developed a case of persistent hives--on the soles of my feet.
95. An eating weakness: if it's in the house and I want to eat it, it gets eaten.
96. My first year in Japan, I hosted a half-hour infomercial for a local technical college, and later did radio ad voice-overs and even a modeling job for a car commercial on TV.
97. I have trouble listening to radio; there are too many commercials, like TV, but with TV you can see visually when to turn the sound back on.
98. I have big feet. I shall allow you to deduce the rest.
99. When I write, I tend not to do drafts, but rather write everything in one chunk, and then proofread; this is a habit from pre-word-processor times when I had to type essays on an old-style typewriter.
100. I'm a sucker for science fiction.

I found that it's more interesting reading other people's lists after you have done your own, since you then have a much better understanding of what is involved. While the ones written by this local cluster of blogs have been very good, the ones I found searching the Internet (you get desperate for inspiration (not stealing!) after 70 or 80 list items) were spotty, and all too often lazy--like cutting up one item into three or four, or making comments on list items into list items themselves (good example of that here). Had I done that, I probably would have twice as many items on my list. It's hard to keep off the list anything which would be a near-universal experience for people of your age (I have one or two in there I guess), and make the list only consist of things that distinguish you from others. The personal history and experiences are a good source of material, but only last so long.

One interesting point: a lot of people mention The Matrix in their lists. Weird. Another note: if I did intend to steal anyone's list items, the one I would most likely steal would be, "There! Are! Four! Lights!" Though you have to be somewhat of a Star Trek fan to get that one.

Noisy Neighbors

This time, actually, it's kind of the reverse of noisy neighbors; instead, I have acquired a neighbor who is incredibly sensitive to noise.

As I've mentioned before, I live in a building which has excellent soundproofing. A couple moved in several years ago with an infant, and I don't hear a thing from them. If the person upstairs vacuums, I don't hear the machine; I just hear the knocking sound it makes if it bumps on the floor--vibrational sound like that. The fact that the loud motor of a vacuum cleaner is stopped says something for the floor-to-ceiling sound cancellation. The only time a neighbor got out of hand was when a kid two floors down got it into him to let loose with an electric guitar with his amps turned up full blast--and even then, it was very, very muffled in my apartment. It took an hour of it to get me annoyed enough to look into it--and I am easily annoyed by sounds like that. That's how good the soundproofing is.

Now, several weeks ago, a couple with a kid moved into the apartment below me. Before, there had been a woman who lived there, and though I had asked her repeatedly if I made any noise, she said "no" every time. Maybe she felt intimidated or something, but I did my best to say that I was a noisy person (I sometimes watch TV till very late at night), and welcomed any report of noise, saying I'd be glad to turn it down. She insisted that she couldn't hear anything.

When the new people came in, they came around with a small gift (a hand towel), as new neighbors in Japan often do. I gave them the usual invitation to let me know if I was being too noisy for them. The very next night, the husband came up and complained about the TV noise. OK, I thought--I was using speakers on the floor, and it had been pretty loud. So I stopped using them, and started using my headphones a lot more; otherwise, I used much smaller, desk-mounted speakers, and not nearly as loud.

The other day, the guy came up again to complain. This time, he said that I was making loud noise constantly from 1 am to 6 am--and I could honestly tell him that (a) I was not making that much noise, and (b) I had gone to bed at 3 am. He seemed puzzled, and maybe like he didn't fully believe me.

Now, tonight, he came up after midnight and complained about noise from my apartment. This time, it was me--but the noise he complained about was my laughing. I was watching a video (volume down), and it was funny, so I laughed--but for no longer than 1 or 2 minutes, and certainly not continuously. Now, keep in mind that the noise of a vacuum cleaner cannot penetrate the same barrier from the apartment above. This guy has to come up and tell me to knock off laughing? I laugh a little loud, but not that loud.

What's more, he said (unapologetically) that he had found the source of the noise that kept him up all night recently--it was from the apartment above me, he said. Now, remember, going through two floors, it took a kid playing electric guitar full blast to get me to notice. And the person in the apartment between us absolutely heard it, too. But now the guy below me says the people above me were making a racket that kept him awake--and I didn't hear a thing.

If this goes on, I am going to have to have a talk with this guy. I mean, I am all for keeping the noise down. But if I am going to have to walk on eggshells because he has better hearing than your average dog, then we have a problem.

Toenail Clippers and Corkscrews

Yes, another entry on a topic of earth-shattering importance! File this one under "Simple Engineering Designs That Have Gone Underutilized." In the U.S., the only toenail clippers I could ever find were the classic type. You know, the kind where, when you clipped your toenails, the nail shards would go flying randomly around you as you went about the clipping task. Thus forcing me to associate toenail clipping with sitting outside on the porch in inclement weather because neither I nor my mother before me wanted stray toenail shards turning up stuck to the underside of everyone's feet for weeks to come.

When I came to Japan, I noticed a design that is so simple that I was astonished that it was not used in America. Simply add a side enclosure to the clipper, and the toenail shards get caught inside the mechanism (so long as you don't hold it the wrong way so they fall out). After clipping, just empty the clipper into the trash--the side-guard even retracts about a half-inch to help with that.

So, my question is, why hasn't this caught on in America? Last I checked a few years ago, this design was still rather rare in the U.S., even though one look at it and you'd wonder at how stupid the alternative is and why this hasn't replaced the classic style. Do the American clipper people just not know about this? Or is it some kind of insidious toenail-shard conspiracy? And (nod to Dave Barry) wouldn't "Toenail Shards" be a great name for a band?

And while I'm critiquing the design of basic household tools, what the hell is the deal with corkscrews? I mean the type with the brace that fits over the mouth of the wine bottle, and the arms that go up as you wind the screw into the cork. In every design I've found of this device, no matter how much you try, after using the arms to pull out the cork, there's still a good half- to three quarters-inch of cork left in the bottle neck which you must still wrestle with to get out, half the time leaving an amputated stump of cork that has to be fished out. I have to think that there's some reason for this to be done, else it's one of the most idiotic engineering screw-ups ever.

I mean, why not just re-engineer the gears on the arms of the device so that the cork is pulled all the way out of the bottle? What's the matter with that idea? Is there some esoteric wine-opening wisdom that shows wine tastes better if human strength is applied directly to finish the corking process? Or is this some idiotic, elitist "you must be talented to open a bottle of wine" crap? I suspect it's the latter--after all, the whole idea of corking wine in the first place seems faddish to me; I know that screw-caps are associated with cheapo Ripples or whatever, but surely there has to be a better, more workable solution. And if not, then at least design the corkscrews to make it even passably unfrustrating to open a simple beverage container.

90% and Over

Finally. Eight and half months after breaking my foot, my doc gave me a clean bill of health today. Well, actually, he said I was 90% healed, but that was good enough for any reasonable activity. The spiral fracture has fused along the entire length of the break, and though the bone still has a month or two before it is 100% healed, it's more or less done the important stuff. Over the next year, the bone should solidify more, with the few jutting parts smoothing off. I wonder if the bone will fuse well enough to look more or less natural despite the new shape.

What did I learn? First, don't take any walking surface for granted. It seemed like a safe patch of concrete which I'd tread before thousands of times, but sometimes even the most familiar setting will catch you off guard. A confluence of speed, turning, angle and surface smoothness did me in that day. Second, I learned that I'm a slow healer. It took me perhaps twice as long as it should have to get fixed back up.

Third, I discovered that the "Beckham treatment" seems to work. Though I lost the crutches three and a half months after the break and could start to walk again, at the six-month mark, the bone still wasn't healing properly. Note the image below: the middle image, marked "APR," was a month after I lost the crutches, and that did not change too much a month after that, when I started using the ultrasound therapy called SAFHS.

Note the difference in mid-July, just a month and a half after starting the therapy. It all filled in pretty strongly except for the top part--and this morning, the x-ray showed that closed up as well, a month later. Without the SAFHS treatment, I don't know how far along my foot would be, but I'd be willing to wager that it still wouldn't be healed. The ultrasound really seems to work--which is probably why they're now using it to grow new teeth. I don't know if that'll work, but I can recommend it for bone repair, if your doctor thinks it'll work for you.

Moralities

Watching the most recent installment of 30 Days, in which an atheist lives in a religious family and community for the requisite amount of time, I heard statements from Christians that I've heard many times before: if not the Bible or the Ten Commandments, what is the basis of your morality? To many Christians, there can be no other basis; without the morality given by God, a person can believe they have morality, but it is only an illusion. For example:

"It is true that some people who are irreligious can live seemingly decent lives, but when they do, they merely borrow from Christian ethics."

I am not a Christian. I am agnostic, sometimes with leanings toward a personal spiritualism resembling Deism. But I most certainly did not derive my morality from Christianity. Am I fooling myself? Am I really an immoral person? I don't think so. What, then, is my basis for morality? To understand this, I think it is important to understand what morality is.

I see there being two different kinds of morality: a general morality, and internal moralities. General morality is roughly the same as what many people see "morality" as being--be kind to others, don't kill, steal, lie, cheat, etc. This morality, to me, is born from self-awareness. We are conscious and aware of our being, and as a consequence or extension of that, we realize that others are also conscious like we are. We can make the leap from knowing what we feel to understanding that others are capable of this as well. We know what is most important for ourselves and how we wish to be treated. We know that we do not want to be hurt or killed, lied to or cheated. Morality, or what I have called "general morality," is the extension of that understanding to the treatment of others, possibly through nothing less than interpersonal negotiation. One might call this the expression of the "golden rule": treat others as you would have them treat you.

However, this is an incomplete description of morality. The basic reason is that not all of us are the same, and not all of us want to be treated in the same way. Years ago, my brother pointed out to me a refinement of the golden rule: treat others as they want to be treated. This makes sense. If I love back rubs, but you hate them, I shouldn't treat you the way I want to be treated. While most of our desires may overlap, not all of them do.

This leads me to the second type of morality I listed above: internal moralities. These are the rules or morality that do not derive from common desires and understandings, but from those particular to an individual or a group. An individual's internal morality would be a rule or preference that applies to one person but not necessarily anyone else. This could include actions that you see as personally important, for example, specific rituals for exercise, language that is appropriate or not, or certain spending rules and habits. You violate these rules and you feel that you have done something wrong.

A community or group's internal morality is more common, however, and applies to rules and preferences peculiar to a social group, such as a family, a congregation, a region, a religion, or a nation--any group with its own specific identity. This could include such things as saying the pledge of allegiance, going to church on Sundays, keeping your lawn free of kitschy ornaments, jury duty, not smoking, and so on.

The common quality of internal moralities is that they apply only to the individual or group that possesses them; they do not apply to those outside. It is immoral for Christians to take the Lord's name in vain, for example; it is not for me. That is the most common source of non-immoral offense: breaking rules that belong to the internal morality of others.

The problem that naturally arises is when people impose their internal morality on others, not seeing the distinction between internal and general morality. As Shaw's Caesar put it, "he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature." One believes that one's internal morality is in fact part of the general morality.

Christians who believe that morality derives only from the Bible take this one step further, however--they not only assume their internal moralities are general, then cannot conceive of there even being any other basis for morality than their own religious doctrine. Therefore, to these extremists, non-Christians are immoral, or, at best, are simply poor imitations of true Christian morality.

To further rebut the claim that I am fooling myself and just "borrowing" their morality, I would point out that morality has to predate Christian morality, as well as the Judaic morality that gave birth to it. Before these religions, before the Ten Commandments, did people kill and steal and lie and cheat and think it was all fine? I think the obvious answer is "no." So, where did they get their morality from?

The answer, of course, is that all general morality, including that part of Christian morality, derives from self-awareness and the resulting sympathetic understanding of the feelings of others. More specific internal moralities derive from group or individual customs, rules, ideas, and preferences. Now, specific internal Christian moral codes can be said to derive from Christianity; for example, the first five of the Ten Commandments are internal moral rules dealing with authority (with the possible exception of parental authority), while the last five are more general moral definitions. But to say that all morality derives from there is arrogant presumption and bias.

We found morality by ourselves; if it was God-given, it was because God built it into us, all of us. But morality has its roots in human awareness and experience, not scripture.

MyPod

I bought an iPod almost three years ago, and usually I use it--but not at home where I have better music playing devices. And since my foot was broken and I was limiting my movements to where I could access these things, I wasn't using the iPod. The last time I used it was my trip home last December.

After I got off my crutches and later became more mobile, I suddenly found the need to use the iPod. So I looked for it where I was pretty sure I had it. It wasn't there. I thought back to where I could have last used it. At first I thought I had last used it on the trip home, so I searched my luggage and all the places I'd put stuff after I came home. Not finding it, I searched the apartment a few times over, like I did several times over the following months. No dice. I called the lost and found for the airlines, the bus line I used, even the taxi company; no one had found it. I thought maybe I hadn't lost it on the trip, and rather that I'd taken it in to school once, so I searched my desk, the classrooms, and asked anyone if they'd found one. Still no iPod. So a few months ago, I resigned myself to having lost a $450 piece of equipment (priced that way when I bought it, anyway).

So now I'm giving the apartment a good cleaning, and am throwing away a lot of stuff that, being the pack rat that I am, I have been hoarding. That includes some plastic shopping bags that I collect but never use. I pick one up, and it is suspiciously heavy. At first I thought, ewww, that's probably some bad juice from a year ago or something. I reach inside, and there's the iPod.

That has to be the longest amount of time I have lost an expensive item without really having lost it. On the down side, I was all set to buy myself a new iPod--though I planned to wait for the new true-video iPod, and that's not likely to come out for another 8 or 9 months. I'll probably get one of those anyway, but maybe I'll wait until revision 2 to do so.

Eighty Percent

As you may recall, I broke the fifth metatarsal of my right foot last December, and it's been taking forever to heal. Since it did not heal well by the beginning of June, I started with an ultrasound therapy, and that seems to be doing a much better job. Check out the image below: my foot when I broke it on December 3, again in April (five months later, not very well healed), and then just the other day in mid-July.

The doc told me that the bone is now 80% healed, so with the new therapy, it might be all the way back by the end of August. That ultrasound pulse stuff seems to actually work. In fact, they seem to be finding more uses for it--including growing new teeth. The article, which I noticed a few weeks ago, details the exact same treatment that I'm using for my feet, except instead of SAFHS, it's called LIPUS, and has a much smaller and automatic pulse generator.

How about that?

The Diet Is Working

At my heaviest, I weighed in at 206 lbs. (94 kg); that was about three or four years ago. I stand at 5' 10.5" (roughly 179 cm), so that's a bit on the big side. (One doctor, maybe three years ago, didn't speak English very well, so he just looked at me and said, "obesity!" I didn't take that too well.) Before I started my newest slimming-down drive, I was down to about 196 lbs. (89 kg), which was mostly due to mild dieting, but nothing serious.

Starting at the beginning of the year (no, it wasn't a resolution--it was the broken foot that started all this by showing me how out of shape I was), I started on a serious health kick, pretty much eschewing beef, pork, and almost any sugar product. I started eating oatmeal in the morning (okay, that stuff has sugar in it) with berries, a 6" sub sandwich (mostly veggies) for lunch, and chicken and salad for dinner. Along with that, I worked my way up to half an hour of Karvonen-Formula exercise most days of the week, and more general exercise-style hobbying, like my birdwatching.

Put that together, and you get weight loss. I had an initial drop to 83 kg (183 lbs.), but that seems to have been the easy part--heck, that was even before my foot healed and I could exercise. After I could start working out, I got down to 81 kg (178 lbs.) without too much trouble, but then on a visit to the doctor, I was told to drop at least three more kilos, to help get my triglycerides down (I still have a bit of a cholesterol problem, why I don't know). So I lost the weight. From what I understand, the slow way is best--I dropped only a few pounds a week, but it worked and stayed off (except for the temporary salty weight gain, all gone now), and upon seeing the same doc a month later--today, that is--I weighed in at 78 kg (172 lbs.).

Apparently they didn't expect me to actually do that; the nurse who weighed me (and took blood) couldn't speak English, so after I went back to wait in the lobby, she came out with a nurse who spoke English, and they asked me if I was feeling okay--they were actually concerned that I was losing weight unhealthily fast. That was nice. But it was also based on a misunderstanding--the nurse subtracted a kilo for my clothing weight, which the nurse a month ago didn't do, so they were under the impression that I lost a bit more than four kilos (almost 10 lbs.) in four weeks.

The preliminary blood work came in by the time I got in to see the doc just a few minutes later, and my blood levels were all within normal range. The doc even calculated my ideal body weight--at just one kilo, or a few pounds, below what I am now--how about that. I certainly am slimmer than I've been since my early thirties, but that's not to say everything is perfect--still too much of that "ideal" weight on my waistline, not enough in the places where it should be. Buff I am not.

Hey, it's something else to work on.

Noise, Huh, What Is It Good For, Absolutely Nothing

Who needs an alarm clock when they start jackhammering outside your window at 8:30 am sharp every single weekday morning? They've been doing that for so long now, I woke up at 8:28 without an alarm. They're installing decorative tiles. Swell. Why can't they start at 10? And it's been weeks, and they've just been doing the foyer right below me. There are about a dozen more in the building. So apparently, I have a lot of incredibly noisy mornings to look forward to without the chance of sleeping in. With vacation coming up, too.

Who needs %#*$@ decorative tiles?

Beyond Astronomical

On Saturday, I related the story about how I was hit by lightning, complete with an audio recording of the incident. I was amazed by being hit, wondering what the odds against that were.

Today, I found out something that makes the odds beyond astronomical, almost beyond belief: one of my co-workers, a professor whose desk is right next to mine, was also hit by lightning--same day, approximately the same time, and same intensity of electrical shock, but in a different part of town.

I know, your first reaction will be that they are pulling my leg. No way something that unlikely could happen. Probably they're having fun with me, maybe they didn't believe my story and are being sarcastic. What a sucker I am, right?

I'll admit, I can be gullible, but I can guarantee you that this is not the case this time. I trust this person implicitly; their personality is completely incompatible with that kind of a gag. My brother-in-law, that would be a different story. By this particular co-worker, not a chance. It's true: we were both hit by lightning the same day, at roughly the same time.

My co-worker, as it turns out, was jogging in a park near her home at the time (about 10 km away from where I was). Like me, she had misjudged the weather, and was caught off-guard by the sudden thunderstorm. In her case, it was already raining a little and she was wet when the lightning hit. She saw a flash and felt the electrical shock down her left arm as the thunderclap and lightning flash hit. Like me, she was startled, though my reaction right after that was, how cool was that! whereas my co-worker was much less enthralled by the experience. She ran for the nearest shelter, a small utility shed in the park, and waited out the lightning storm there.

But really, what are the chances? I calculated the odds, very, very roughly, of both of us being hit at 90 billion to one--but that's just for any two people being struck by lightning, and does not factor in the circumstance that we both work together in a small office. I have no idea how to factor that in, but I'm sure that if you did, the odds would go up to the point where you'd need a few sheets of paper just to contain all the zeroes involved.

Stranger than fiction....

Struck by Lightning

Let me start off by pointing out that the title of this post quite accurately describes what happened to me today, and not in any metaphoric sense. I was literally struck by lightning a few hours ago.

Of course, I was not struck directly--had I been, I would not be sitting at home right now. Let me explain what happened.

This morning, I decided to do some birding around the bay. I was going to make a bit of a day of it, starting at the Tokyo Minato Yacho Koen near Haneda Airport and then making my way over to Kasai Rinkai, near Tokyo Disneyland. The weather was sunny and hot--around 100 degrees when I left.

When I got to the bird park, there were clouds off in the distance, but it still seemed nice. Not many birds were there, however (I'll do a birding report later). I did manage to get some nice shots of a Little Ringed Plover when the thunder really got started. It had been thundering for maybe fifteen minutes, but not very frequently. But then it really started going, maybe three or four strikes a minute. While some parts of the sky were still bright, dark clouds from the north were starting to cover the sky above. With my rainsuit stashed in my scooter (it's always there, for instances like this) on the other side of the park, I figured it was time to get the hell out of Dodge and get to my suit before I got soaked.

Halfway out, the lightning was going pretty steady, bolts flashing all around--which for me, is pretty cool. I love lightning and thunder, and still do. In fact, I've always wanted to get a good recording of that sheet-ripping sound of nearby lightning. So while I walked out of the park, I had my camera on, and was using the voice notation feature as an audio recorder, in case a good peal of thunder presented itself.

At that point, I crossed the bridge which goes over the railroad tracks and roads that lead in to the adjacent shipping/distribution center. I saw a couple with a video camera on the middle of the bridge, and asked them if they were filming birds. They said they were filming the planes going into Haneda. Just after I walked by them, it happened.

Now, remember I said I was recording at that time. Well, here it is:

Me getting struck by lightning (MP3 version, 375 KB)
Me getting struck by lightning (WAV version, 1.3 MB)

Those are two different versions of the same recording. By the way, it sounds best when listened to with headphones and the sound way up. When you listen to it, you'll hear sounds you may not recognize without introduction. First, you'll hear thunder in the background, a previous strike that was still echoing. You'll hear a rhythmic crunching sound, which is me walking on the gravel bridge; I take about five steps before it hits me. Then you'll hear a static crackle, then me yelping in shock as the lightning hits me, then the crack of immediate thunder accompanying the lightning strike. Then you hear my reaction, and I speak to the couple I just passed on the bridge, as a flock of starlings flushed by the lightning can be heard flying overhead.

Here's a longer version (MP3, 580 KB) with more audio before and after the strike. It's also censored--bleeped when I cussed, a version I made for my class (of course I'm going to play it for them). In this version, you hear me talking to the couple before the strike, and you can also hear a few more comments by me as I walk off the bridge.

As I mentioned in the recording, I felt the lightning strike. That was the yelp I made; I felt an electric shock in my left foot, which I presume was the one touching the bridge as I walked. I did not see the lightning bolt, disappointingly--it struck behind me--but I did notice the strobe effect from the flash all around me. Since I didn't see it directly, I don't know how far away it was, but it was probably within ten feet of me, maybe hitting the railing of the bridge. But consider: I was wearing rubber-soled shoes, it was dry, and I was on gravel, and still I got a strong electric shock to my foot.

At that point, I just figured that it was a really good idea to get out of there, so I did, making it back to my bike just after the rain started. I was going to hide out in a tunnel until the lightning stopped, but by the time the rain started, the lightning had stopped, so I headed on home. As it turned out, the rain only lasted fifteen or twenty minutes, but I was wet enough not to want to go on with the birding.

Besides, once you get hit by lightning, isn't that pretty much going to be the high point of the day?

Salty Pounds

I've been trying to lose weight this year, and have been pretty successful. I lost almost 10 kilos since the beginning of the year before I hit a plateau; in the past few weeks I've been on a stricter diet-and-exercise regime, and I was gaining ground--I lost two more kilos in that time. But early this week, I found that I had put those two kilos back on almost overnight. What the...?

It turns out the culprit was... pretzels. I bought some at Costco last weekend, seeing as how they were low-calorie, low-fat, etc.--a good snack, it seemed. At first I was stunned, and couldn't believe that eating a small number of pretzels could increase my weight by several times the full weight of the pretzels themselves. I was still puzzling over it this morning until I figured it out: pretzels are salty.

These particular pretzels were very salty, in fact. That's OK with me--I love salty stuff. But a Biology lesson from back in high school flashed through my mind: when you increase the amount of salt in your body, your body increases your fluid retention in order to balance the saline concentration. I did a quick Google search and confirmed it. So eating lots of salt means you retain fluids, and gain weight. Damn! And I like pretzels, too--I thought I'd found a new good snack.

The good news is that it's fluid weight, not fatty weight, which means (I hope) that staying away from salt and drinking a lot of water should help flush the salt from my system, and the weight should fall off rather easily.

Surprised the hell outta me, though.

I Love a Good Thunderstorm

We just got hit by a massive sudden thundershower. First, there were repeated lightning strikes. One hit very close, and had that awesomely cool 3-second ripping sound before the main, booming peal of thunder, a sound like a mile-long sheet of fabric is being torn. Seconds later, rain is pouring in buckets, along with a small amount of hail, so thick you can see it swirling and pouring in two or three different directions before it hits the ground. Then the sun comes out only a few minutes later, while it is still pouring, heralding the coming end of the rain as the ground is suddenly covered with small, fast-running rivulets and deep puddles where dry ground was just minutes before.

I love weather like that. As long as I am not outside in it. And even then, I still think it's cool.

Tax Time

If you're an American living and working in Japan, tax time is just about here. Even though you will probably owe no taxes--you get an automatic $80,000 exemption, and a $3,200 deduction for yourself in addition--you must file or lose the exemption! It's not too late, though--we get an automatic extension until June 15th. You should have gotten your tax forms by now in the mail, if you've filed taxes from Japan before. If not, you can get your tax forms here as printable PDF files. Unless you make more than $80,000, you'll just need forms 1040 and 2555. By the way, the 2005 yen-dollar exchange rate was 110.11 yen to the dollar.

Alas, the U.S. government, after handing out so many hundred-billion-dollar tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires, had to go all penny-and-dime on us expats and closed down the minimally-staffed IRS office at the U.S. Embassy--meaning that if you need any official help, you now have to call the U.S. and wait on hold for an hour for the IRS rep to get to you, and probably even then they won't know what you have to do. But, lucky for you, I did a blog post two years ago which shows you step-by-step how to make out your tax forms. As always, I do not guarantee their accuracy and you follow them at your own risk. I have to say that--I'm not a professional tax preparer or anything. It's just how I do mine. And if you're confused about how to fill these things out, the guide will probably help a lot. Mail it off by June 15th and you'll be fine.

Pulse It Like Beckham

Although I can walk on my broken foot now, and have been for a few months, it's still somewhat broken. That is, the bones aren't properly knitting. There's pain, but not at the break, rather at nearby joints, and that may be from the atrophy from having used crutches for more than three months. Still, the break should be healing faster, and better. It's not.

As a way to help with the healing, I'm using a system called SAFHS ("Sonic Accelerated Fracture Healing System"; scroll to the bottom of the linked page to see illustrations), pronounced "safes." It's a very-low-frequency ultrasound pulse device, which is reported to help bone healing, especially in cases like my own. The FDA approved it 12 years ago. When the World Cup was played in Japan in 2002, David Beckham broke his second metatarsal (I broke my fifth) just a few months before the games started; he used the same technique (as my doc loves to tell me):

"We have an ultrasound product that's capable of repairing broken bones. David Beckham wouldn't have played in the last World Cup if it hadn't have been for our ultrasound bone healing technology when he broke his metatarsal."

While my doc at first dissuaded me from using it (he thought it was not covered by insurance and would not be overly effective), I went to see a second doctor who urged me to use the device. Sure enough, sources on the web report rather dramatic improvements in healing when using the device--makes me wish I had started using it a lot sooner. And it turns out that insurance will cover it after all; my first doc had it wrong on that account, too.

Still, it's not cheap. It costs ¥125,000 (about $1100), 70% of which my insurance pays for, so I'm shelling out $330. I gotta figure that most of that pays for the research & development for the device, because the device itself doesn't look like it should cost nearly that much. It's a little thing, almost small enough to call it handheld, with a cord leading up to a small rubber puck-like thing (imagine a rubber drain stopper), which is the pulse generator. With a gel applied, that gets snapped into a belt with a round hole that goes around my foot; turn on the machine for 20 minutes a night, and that's it. It's a take-home device, on loan to me until whenever the doc says the healing is good enough.

Let's hope it works.

Odds & Ends, End of May

Someone is selling a very precise and fully-tricked-out Back to the Future DeLorean time machine car on eBay, in "pristine" condition, can actually be driven, and has all the special effects including flux capacitor and time circuits. Vanity plate "OUTATIME" not available (too many letters anyway), instead it reads "BK2D80S." For the ultimate geek who has everything. Looks like it would be fun to ride in, for about five minutes, and then the embarrassment would quickly overtake the novelty.

I mean, it'd be OK for a joyride, but really, can you imagine going shopping in it? Of course, it would probably be theft-proof; even if a car thief did want to steal it, it's not like the police couldn't track it down in ten seconds flat.

The eBay description does not guarantee flyability or accurate time displacement. Your mileage may vary.

Speaking of movies, there's going to be yet another remake of the The Seven Samurai, this time with a Chinese cast (Donnie Yen, Zhang Ziyi et al), plus George Clooney. Um, wha? According to the rumors, the film, budgeted at $100 million, will feature lots of Kung-fu action and digital effects. This is a movie that Harvey Weinstein (producer of Pulp Fiction, Lord of the Rings, Scream, and Scary Movie among others) has reportedly wanted to make for some time. Clooney is said to be taking the role of the lead samurai, portrayed by Takashi Shimura in the original. It's anyone's guess as to where and when the remake would be set, or how Clooney could fit in. One can only hope that it won't be as terrible as it sounds.

Supposedly another of Weinstein's projects will be Fahrenheit 9/11 ½, a new film due out in 2007 (presumably after Sicko) by Michael Moore about the state of Bush's America since the 2004 election. Make of it what you will.

A very interesting birth: a child born in Shanghai with three arms--and it is difficult to tell which of his left arms is more developed than the other. While doctors debate which arm should be removed, another question is, should either arm be removed? The photo is not grotesque (unless that kind of thing especially bothers you), but what is unnerving is how similar it seems to all the pictures we've seen over the past years showing frogs being born with similar extra limbs. The next sign of environmental damage taking its toll?of it what you will.

And finally, I did not know that you could be fined and even jailed by a court of law in Japan for disrupting a high school graduation ceremony. Apparently you can be. But I'll bet you any amount you like that 65-year-old retired Social Studies teacher Katsuhisa Fujita was not fined ¥200,000 by the Tokyo District Court just because he was disruptive. My bet is that he would never have been arrested, tried, or fined had the disruption been about anything else but the Japanese national anthem and flag. Fujita's crime was that he urged parents attending the ceremony to remain seated during the anthem as a way to protest Japan's growing nationalism, which many see as represented by the government's demand that the anthem and flag be displayed and mandatorily saluted at schools across the country.

The "tumult" caused by Fujita delayed the ceremony by all of two minutes, for which the prosecutors wanted the senior citizen thrown in jail for eight months. Which, one would presume, would convince everyone that Japan is not becoming a totalitarian state, because we all know that liberal democracies are renowned for throwing the elderly in prison for the egregious crime of free speech, especially when agitating against fascism. And with the prosecutors' job done, Japan is again safe from 65-year-old Social Studies teachers trying to teach everyone about democracy.

Poetry

Sometimes the elegance of a single photo can truly strike you. I wish I had a larger version of this picture, but this one from a CNN set (via DKos) will have to do. Taken by a family member of a returning soldier, this is the kind of photo you expect to win a Pulitzer for its simplicity and its symbolism. You see no faces, and yet the image could not be more full of expression. A father returning home to what is most important to him, his weapon casually yet significantly discarded. The composition could not be more perfect. One could write volumes and yet not articulate as exquisitely as this as desirable a resolution to conflict.

Random Stuff, 5/22/06

Don't you hate those new "ad links" in web pages? They appear mostly in news or magazine sites, as green, double-underlined words; if your cursor moves over them, little javascript windows appear displaying ads even remotely related to the word in question. They block the text and take a small amount of time to generate and disappear. Now I have to be careful to keep my cursor away from the dang things or be annoyed. As if the ring of dancing, flashing advertisements all around the periphery--and sometimes in the middle--of the page are somehow not enough. Even pop-up blocking browsers like Safari and Firefox are not 100%--on both browsers, I have visited sites that somehow got around the blockers and opened pop-ups anyway.

Safari also has a bug I don't like much. On some sites, like MSNBC, any attempt to select text results in a 5- to 10-second pause while the browser goes into spinning-beachball mode.

I went birdwatching recently... inside Costco. The last few times I've visited, I've noticed Tree Sparrows flying up in the rafters. They congregate near the back of the store, where the open-topped bakery is--which makes me wonder, as I bite into those tasty Costco bagels, exactly how they keep the sparrow droppings from getting into the baked goods...

Microsoft seems to be on a new-software kick; after releasing the MSIE 7 beta, they're now releasing Windows Media Player (WMP) version 11, also in beta. The Washington Post has a piece on it, calling it an improvement, but still not a match for iTunes. It is also reported (that's a link to one of those pages with the annoying green underline ads) that WMP, like MSIE, goes through the OS "validation" process to see if you have a non-pirated version of Windows.

David Blaine, after living in a giant fish bowl for a week then failing to hold his breath long enough, has announced that next, he will "live harmoniously among wild beasts" in an as-yet undisclosed jungle. Observers have noted that if Blaine were places in true wilderness amongst feral creatures, he wouldn't last long. Aren't there laws to protect the mentally ill from themselves? Or to protect us from desperately pathetic attention seekers? Fortunately, I only hear about these things peripherally at best; I make a point of not paying attention to stories like Michael Jackson's court proceedings, Britney Spear's adventures in babysitting, or similar stupid stuff. I looked at the recent Blaine story solely to make fun of it here.

Well, finally. Yet another Windows piece of malware came along the pike, this one big enough to momentarily distract the media from its weeks-long Macs-are-dangerous kick. This one is a trojan, called "Trojan.Mdropper.H," and spreads through email, pretending to be a valid corporate MS Word attachment. When you open the attachment, you see Excel charts and Powerpoint presentations--and a piece of malicious code named "Backdoor.Ginwui" opens a back door in your system to allow hackers to gain control. It's called a "zero-day exploit," which means that it is not known to the general public, or does not affect it, meaning that system administrators get little or no advance warning of the malware before it hits.

Ironically, McAfee is calling this one a "trojan," despite their recent scaremongering report, in which they said that a trojan was really a virus, justifying their ability to say "viruses infect the Mac!" Apparently, trojans are now trojans again, at least on Windows.

Oh, boy. A Democratic congressman got caught taking payola. And it got filmed. The guy's corrupt, should be jailed. But I'll bet you dollars to donuts this is gonna be used big-time by the right wing to claim that Democrats are just as, if not more corrupt than Republicans, on the heels of successful yet wildly inaccurate rumor-mongering that the Abramoff scandal was equally spread among the two parties. I wouldn't even be too surprised if the FBI was directed to try to get something on a Democrat to take the pressure off the Republicans, and it looks like the details of the case may have been leaked precisely for that purpose.

The fact remains that Republican scandals of the past years make things like this look like chickenfeed--and it's a lot scarier on the Republican side, because they're so much better at hiding it and getting away with it. Look what Tom DeLay and other Republicans had to do to get caught, and even still he might lawyer his way out of it. This Jefferson guy got videotaped taking the bribe and stashed the money in his freezer. Amateur.

Hell, this guy almost had to be corrupt anyway--he's a Louisiana Democrat.

More Bits and Pieces, 4/20/2006

Remember how the GOP's and Bush administration's Medicare drug plan prohibited Medicare from negotiating for better drug prices? Well, lots of seniors are finding out how that's affecting them. Some are discovering that their subsidized purchase of drugs via Medicare are more expensive (and sometimes come with more restrictions) than buying their drugs at Costco.

Bush and the GOP like to talk about how Medicare is "broken." Well, it is now they've sabotaged it.

It seems that finally a media company has figured out that in order to be successful in selling downloadable movies, they have to get rid of the ridiculous restrictions recently laid down by the big studios. Instead of limiting downloads to people with Windows, IE, and specific media players, instead of limiting the download to the feature attraction only, and instead of prohibiting the burning of the movie to DVD, one media company has boldly decided to allow customers to download the entire DVD content, with special features and all, and burn it to a DVD at home, for the same price as buying one at a store. The DVD will have some copy protection, but nothing the average consumer would notice unless they tried copying the DVD.

Who is this upstart media company? Vivid Entertainment Group. Who are they? They are an "adult entertainment giant." That's right, following a centuries-old paradigm that any popular new media concept will be first pioneered by the porn industry, Vivid will apparently be the first to sell downloadable videos without prohibitive restrictions. The big Hollywood studios are said to be watching this move closely (maybe in more ways than one), and if successful, they may emulate it. Where would we be without porn?

The new Macbooks (formerly "iBooks") should be arriving in about a month. If they're priced right, then they should be a huge seller. These laptops are supposed to be outfitted with Core Duos, only slightly slower than the Macbook Pros, and will have a widescreen 13.3" display that should make them large enough for most people's wants yet small enough for those who desire compactness. They will also be able to run Mac OS X and Windows XP side by side, at relatively low cost. I think a lot of my students would buy this one, where they wouldn't buy the iMac or Macbook Pro. I think a lot of other people will be that way as well. However, if you're at the other end of the scale and like to splurge, the 17" Macbook Pro is reportedly just a few days away from release.

Meanwhile, Apple is doing very well. Sales have more than tripled over the past six years, much of it due to the iPod and iTunes Music Store, which now account for about half of Apple's sales. Apple has bought 50 acres of land in Cupertino to build a new Apple Campus, since they have rented every square foot of available office space in Cupertino and still need more. On news of Apple's sales report, Apple stock surged $3 (almost 5%).

Want to see something freaky? Go to this site and check out the video of the Robotic Chair. It collapses into six pieces, completely breaking apart. Then watch what happens. [WMV video; via Engadget.] The table videos are kind of cute.

Not so cute is the FBI's apparent new policy: when an investigative reporter dies, they get first dibs to view all the reporter's notes and documents and classify whatever they want. Seems to me to be less a matter of national security and more an issue of hiding dirty laundry. Not to mention the dirty tricks they appear to be using to accomplish this.

Naturally, the media is in an uproar, blasting the FBI and shouting "no fair" from the treetops. My question is, why didn't the media do this when they knew Bush was lying to the American people about Iraq? It seems the media only gets outraged when the government screws with them, but not when the government screws the people.

Bits and Pieces, 4/19/2006

Right-to-Lifers just got a green light from a judge to go to a Florida clinic where abortions are performed and scream "murderer!" or whatever else they want right into the faces of women arriving for medical treatment. The judge in the case ruled it an issue of "free speech," but I have doubts about this judge. In his ruling, he cited a "typical" police report that protesters were "peacefully limited to prayer and song," but also noted that the clinic used its loudspeakers to broadcast "blasts [of] music to drown out protesters," which would seem excessive if people were just praying and singing quietly on the clinic's front lawn and not harassing the women walking in.

But the giveaway comes from a web search which reveals that the judge's "typical" report does not consider this article mentioning pro-life protester Susan Pine who "normally" greets the women entering the clinic (which provides services other than abortion) "with a bullhorn, yelling that they should not kill their babies and handing out pamphlets with graphic photos of aborted fetuses."

Methinks the judge in this case may be a wee bit biased on the pro-life side. Ya think?

Scott McClellan "resigned" his position, a few weeks after reports that he would be fired made the rounds. No exact reason was given, but Amy Poehler quipped on SNL previously that "McClellan says he'd like to spend more time lying for his family."

President Bush said McClellan had "a challenging assignment." I will tactfully refrain from making jokes about this comment on the grounds that it would be ludicrously easy to do so, not to mention that you have undoubtedly come up with seven or eight yourself since you started reading this sentence.

Republicans in Congress are working to allow religious schools to reject or expel students for being gay. Love thy neighbor and thy fellow man, unless he's a God-forsaken homo.

I'm sorry, that's unfair. Actually, the law would allow religious schools to discriminate on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age and disability as well.

A driver in Colorado used a $100 gadget to give himself green lights all the way to work, and then some. The device is similar to those used by firefighters to switch traffic signals to green to get them to emergencies more quickly. The man used his version to switch lights for two full years, all over the state of Colorado, before he was caught by alert traffic engineers, who apparently go for years without noticing that traffic lights are being screwed around with. Actually, the heads-up came from other drivers who complained about traffic backups caused by the offender, who apparently used it every day at the exact same intersections.

The guy caught with the device said he used it because he was always late for work. He was fined $50.

The Supreme Court gave the thumbs-down to Jerry Falwell. Falwell had sued gay rights activists over their use of the domain name fallwell.com on the grounds that some people might think that he wrote it. The gay rights activists' site's domain name adds an extra "L" to the name, and Falwell is pissed that people who can't spell (presumably a large percentage of his ministry) might find out about his homophobia.

Activists named Students Against War (SAW) protested military recruitment at UC Santa Cruz, and to teach them a lesson, right-wing nutjob Michelle Malkin posted their home phone numbers on the web. Granted, the amateur protesters had listed those numbers on the press release they handed out, but Malkin knew full well that printing them publicly was begging for these people to be harassed to no end; phone numbers on press releases are not intended for public release in the media but instead are a means for reporters to contact the people involved.

Well, the protesters got nonstop calls from Malkin's minions, including numerous death threats. When politely asked to take down the contact information, Malkin spitefully reprinted the numbers--and then to make it look like she was the victim, she printed vicious email sent to her, as if (a) getting email is the same as your phone ringing off the hook, and (b) somehow that makes it OK for her to give the nod-and-a-wink to her fans to send off more death threats. Now, if she printed her own home phone number and invited people to make death threats to her, then maybe she could use the "I'm getting it just as bad" excuse, not that it would make her any less of a jerk.

My brother pointed out to me that Andrew Sullivan regularly assigns a "Michelle Malkin Award" for "shrill, hyperbolic, divisive and intemperate right-wing rhetoric," but that Ann Coulter is ineligible, for the rather evident reason that if she were not, she would be the only one receiving the honor.

Bits and Pieces, 3/19/06

They were expected to last 90 days. Sure, engineers always over-engineer, and leave themselves a comfortable extra margin. But the first of the two Martian rovers, Spirit, has lasted an amazing 779 days, or approximately two years and one and a half months of continuous operation, mostly on solar power, sending back countless photos and scientific data as it rolls along plains, up hills, across the face of Mars. It has traveled a total of 6,797 meters, or 4.2 miles, and finally, it is beginning to wear out. At the height of Martian winter approaches and sunlight wanes to a minimum, one of Spirit's wheels has become stuck. And yet, the rover moves on, limping still, trying to reach a position on McCool Hill's north-facing slopes so it can spend the rest of the winter in maximum sunlight. Every once in a while I still visit the image pages for the rovers, where you can see the latest landscape, a new rock-face, yet another panorama of Mars. Way, way cool.

Google has won! At least for now, as the government will probably try to appeal. The snoops in the Bush administration want to peruse through your searches (like they want to sniff through everything else you do), so they can "fight porn," despite the uselessness of the Google data in meeting that end. More likely, they are trying to set up a precedent so they can filch the files all they want in the future, and get more data about you--oh, I'm sorry, about terrorists--and probably have some nice juicy tidbits, like who searches for porn and how often. Answer: none of the government's damned business.

So good for Google. Microsoft eagerly handed over the data, as they care little for the end user, and Yahoo caved in, as did others. Google stood and fought, and though a week ago it seemed that they might be forced to give up partial user search data, they eventually won out. Only 50,000 anonymous URLs, not user searches, will be given to the government. This is one of the reasons I use Google. Yes, they aren't perfect--they caved in to China's demands for censorship. But more often then not, they do the right thing. Also, they have lots of cool, free software and services, and are constantly developing more--like an online word processor, fantastic web page stats engine, and more. (Anyone have an invitation for the Google Analytics, by the way? Leave a comment with your email, I'll intercept it in moderation and reply, the email address won't get published.)

Not to mention that Google is the best search engine, and certainly does best by me--they send twice as many visitors to my blog than all other search engines combined--five times more than Yahoo, ten times more than MSN. They're the biggest, best, and coolest. Or am I gushing too much?

Bush uses straw-man arguments in his speeches. This is something new? I think not.

In the meantime, Bush's approval ratings continue to sink. Newsweek has him at 36% Rasmussen, the most Bush-loving of all polls, has him at 40%, the lowest they've ever ranked him. Everyone else has him well below the 40% mark. And yet not even 40% want to see Bush censured for violating the Constitution. Are we in Bizarro-land or what? More than that wanted Clinton impeached for getting a blow job. Too many Americans are deeply unbalanced.

From DKos:

Have you seen the Patriot Act game? The game's creator says, "I've had people complain to me that when they play, nobody wins. They say 'We're all in Guantanamo and nobody has any civil liberties left,'" he said. "I'm like 'Yeah, that's the point.'"

Japan opens up archives of suffering and hardships of people in WWII.

Only of Japanese people, of course.

The Foot's Agame

Just got back from the doctor, now three and a half months after breaking my fifth metatarsal in my right foot. Handed in the crutches, and the doc says that so long as I favor the injured area, I can walk more or less normally. For me, the problem will more likely be that I'll be so used to favoring the whole foot, I'll limp more out of habit than out of necessity.

With this whole thing coming to a close, I thought I might write about the experience from start to finish.

This started on December 3rd, as I was walking out my door. I was invited to a party with people from work, and I had spent the day before shopping for party food and learning the route (it was a long way away, three train transfers and two bus rides). I made sure I had everything, locked my door, and headed for the stairs. To get to the stairs, I have to take a u-turn from my front door. The concrete floor at the point of the turn is not only smooth, but also (as I discovered by observing later) is slightly inclined so as to allow rain run to a gutter. Add in the centrifugal force of the turn and that I was going a bit faster than usual on the foot-pivot, and the result is that I slipped and fell. My foot, however, remained level as it slipped, while my leg and body fell at an angle. That led to too much strain on the outside of the foot, and I heard a loud "snap" as the bone broke.

My first decision was whether or not to have surgery. As you can see on the original x-ray, the broken bone halves had separated quite a bit. I was shocked to hear the emergency room doctor suggest that simply leaving it to heal naturally would be an option. After talking to the doc and my immediate family, I decided to go with surgery to have pins put in. However, the decision was a bit complex.

The injury happened just ten days before I was scheduled to fly back home to stay with my folks, so flying back was one factor. And though I didn't know it at the time, it is said that if you have surgery, then the chance of a thrombosis (a blood clot you can get from sitting in an airline seat for too long) increases dangerously. Then there's the wound left by surgery, which could become infected, and I'd have to do it again later to have the pins removed. But my biggest worry was whether or not the break could heal properly. At last, a somewhat distant family relative in orthopedics got back with the advice not to have surgery. Knowing that it was possible for the bones to heal without help, going through all the extra hassle (and expense--at least $1000, with insurance picking up the other 70%) for the bones to heal a few weeks faster would not have been worth it.

So I traveled with crutches instead. Though the foot swelled up quite a bit when traveling to the U.S. (ten days after the break), my trip was otherwise pretty successful. Wheelchairs were provided at Shinjuku Station, Narita Airport Station, and at the airline check-in counter on the Japan side, and at the door of the plane upon arrival at SFO (my travel agent handled the airport wheelchairs, I arranged the JR help). The wheelchairs came with staff to push me and drag luggage (JR provided 2-3 people each time, the airlines one apiece), and I got taken through the crew/diplomatic lines, very short and fast. And of course, I got early boarding. So long as you arrange everything in advance, you can get some very good assistance to make everything breeze through.

Not everything went smoothly; the transfer from Keio to JR lines at Shinjuku Station was a nightmare, with an ignorant ticket gate staff sending me on a very long, unnecessary uphill hike with crutches. And the seating on the airplane on the trip out was disastrous--the bulkhead seating I had to fight the airline to get turned out to be the worst on the whole plane, with a regular economy seat near the back being more spacious. That's partly how the foot got swollen; not only could I not elevate it, but I couldn't even rest it comfortably.

Here's a thought. They only allow physically fit people to sit in the exit rows of planes. The reasoning is that these people will be the ones to help others out. If you ask me, that reasoning sucks. I was seated about 8 rows back from an exit. Had there been some emergency and the plane caught on fire, I would be screwed. It would be hard enough for anyone to get out of the plane, but me, with a broken foot and my crutches stowed? Forget about it, it'd be hopeless. And why do the "helpers" have to sit right next to the door? Why all three people sitting near an exit? Seems reasonable to me to put the people with infirmities near the door so you can grab them and throw them down the escape slide. If you seat them everywhere else, they'll be stuck and cause a traffic jam. Not to mention that the infirmed need that extra leg space, far more than anyone else. Someone should re-think that whole policy.

The trip back was better, partially because I got "Economy Plus" (i.e., a regular economy seat rather than a sardine-can "Economy Minus" seat like I got on the way out), but probably more because my foot was more healed by that time.

The timing of my injury was both good and bad. Bad because it zapped me just when vacation was upon me, forcing me to fly with a broken foot, and miss out on a lot of fun. Also bad because the best birdwatching season is December to February, the exact time I was out with the injury (and I had started birdwatching the previous February, just as that season was ending). The timing was good, on the other hand, because I had just finished my last class of the semester the day before. Final exams and the graduation ceremony I was able to sit out (I monitored the exams from home while others subbed for me). That's good because it meant I missed the least amount of work possible. Work started again a month and a week later, by which time I could get around enough to come in to work. But then fortune struck again: by unusual chance, I happened to have a schedule that brought me in to work on Tuesdays and Thursdays only, meaning I could recuperate more and crutch around town less. In that sense, the timing was just about perfect.

Driving a scooter also helped immensely. If I were to use public transportation, it would mean crutching down a hill for ten minutes to a bus stop, and waiting for the bus. Then crutching through train stations, worst of all Shinjuku--the transfer from my train line to my work's train line included a walk across the length of the station, which would probably take 15 minutes, with stairs along the way (ever tried climbing/descending stairs on crutches in a busy train station?). Then there would be the trip from the station to work. And at every juncture, I'd have to take elevators, which are often placed inconveniently. Then the same in reverse on the way back (ending in an uphill 10-minute climb). Had I had a 5-day-a-week schedule, I'd have to do that ten times each week. God, what a nightmare that would have been.

Instead, I had my scooter, thank God. Door-to-door transportation, sitting all the way. For short trips, I could just put the crutches on the floor board between my arms, leaning against my shoulder. For longer trips, the crutches went upside-down on my back, between my back and my backpack, like those samurai flicks where the guy has his hilt on his back, and reaches over a shoulder to draw his sword. A lot of people commented that it seemed dangerous to drive with an injured foot, but so long as I could place weight on the heel, there was no problem.

I also learned a bit about how handicapped people are treated. While sometimes people would give preference to me in public, all too often they did not. When I was going to the airport, after my seemingly endless hike at Shinjuku Station, I had to buy a ticket at a JR ticket shop. I was sweating like crazy, my arms and good foot in obvious pain--I was a wreck on crutches, and yet no one offered me to get ahead in line. When I first tried to go shopping at the supermarket, I tried to use a cart, which was extremely difficult--I'd have to crutch and then push the cart every step, alternating where my hands went--and people in traffic around me kept shoving in front of me, making it harder, not easier. Once, when I was entering a Subway Sandwich shop, I opened the door, only to have some guy try to shove past me and get ahead of me in line to be served. Not a lot of consideration sometimes, I'm afraid.

Then there's the design of my apartment and the building it's in. Japanese apartments are not good for disabled people, as they tend to be narrow. Fortunately, I had an old, small, armless office chair on wheels which I used a lot to roll back and forth from one place to another. But my bath/laundry area is elevated up a step, making navigation more difficult there, as is the toilet room, making it hard to access, especially when I was starting out.

But worst is the general staircase design outside my apartment. My building has an elevator, but the idiot who designed the building made it so the elevator stops at the half-floor, not on every floor's level. Which means you have to walk up or down half a flight of stairs to go between your front door and the elevator. Stupidest design I've ever seen, and completely unnecessary to the building's function. The only purpose I can see it having is to keep the elderly and handicapped from renting there.

The healing process in my case was slow. The doc originally said 6-8 weeks. But the x-rays taken every two weeks kept showing little improvement, and "another four weeks" was a recurring diagnosis every two weeks. Even now, with my crutches no longer needed, the x-rays don't show the rebuilt bone every much--you have to work hard to see anything in the gap. But the doc insists it's there. And the bone parts seem to be pulling closer together. I can still feel the jagged edge of one part sticking out a bit, which the doc says will be subsumed within a few years.

The foot still hurts some, but feels better all the time. The remaining pain is mostly in the non-injured parts of the foot, from atrophy and strain from hobbling. Hopefully that'll decrease as time goes on. Who knows, maybe in three weeks, when spring break comes up, I'll be good enough to start birdwatching seriously again. Maybe by May or June, I'll be well enough to birdwatch up Mt. Takao. We'll have to see. This was my first broken bone, and it was educational. Let's hope I won't have another such chance to learn ever again.

Finally, My Foot

Finally, my foot is feeling better. Ha! Bet I fooled you with the entry title, didn't I?

After almost three months, my foot is almost good enough to walk on. Good enough to hobble around without crutches, using my heel on the broken foot. As you recall, I broke the fifth metatarsal on my right foot at the beginning of December. Just in time for my vacation and the peak birdwatching season. At least I had a great schedule this semester, Tuesdays and Thursdays only, allowing me to stay home more often--though it would have been great to have actually done something with those days instead of wasting it on recuperating.

The strange thing is, the x-rays don't really seem to show too much improvement. The image at left is not really the best quality and resolution, but it represents the change between early December and about a week ago. See the difference? Me neither. But my doc assures me that he can see healing going on (I do have to admit that the copy they gave me last week was a lot blurrier and both are taken by my digital camera with the x-rays taped to the kitchen window--a lot of detail was lost in the process).

Apparently so much healing, that I could finally chuck my splint and bandage and start wearing my right shoe ("hard shoe," the doc said), and it feels pretty good. I'm going to have to take his word when he tells me I can put weight on the foot again, supposedly a week from now. Five weeks ago, he said it'd heal in "four weeks." Three weeks ago, he said "four weeks." So last week I expected four weeks again, but he said "two weeks." What a nice thing to hear that was. Though maybe I'm getting my hopes up too much and he'll give me another two weeks next week.

All I know is that it's feeling better. Not like I have to baby it so much. And after three months, I can't wait to start using the dang thing again.

Siamese Renality

I'd forgotten about this. A few years back, when I got an ultrasound during a medical checkup, the technician told me something I had not known about myself. I have conjoined kidneys.

Yep. That's right. They're joined at the... er, kidney, I guess. One big one instead of two little ones. Actually, they are, apparently, elongated and joined at the lower end, to make a kind of a "V" shape. Most bizarre thing I'd ever heard about my insides. I mean, I had never even heard of conjoined kidneys before. In fact, I'd never heard of conjoined anything in terms of one person's internal organs. But there they were, on the ultrasound, looking like... well, okay, I was looking right at them and had no idea what I was looking at. But I took the guy's word.

The tech said he didn't know exactly how common, or uncommon, that was, but if he had to guess, he said it was maybe one in every ten thousand people. I don't know, though--that sounds awfully high. Think about it--that's more than half a million people on Earth with conjoined kidneys. One would think that with that many people that way, you'd hear about it a bit more often. A Google search comes up with little about conjoined kidneys--mostly pages that mention them indirectly, or pages no longer up for viewing--and one butt-ugly rendition of a pair, though not as elegantly vee-shaped as my own. Certainly not enough hits to make one think that one could fill up all of Milwaukee with people like me. Besides, if I'm going to have any conjoined organs, I want to be more unique than just one in every ten thousand.

Fortunately, the condition doesn't mean anything, not that the doctor could come up with. Apparently people with one big 'ol kidney doin' the work of two never even know it--I certainly didn't, before the sonogram tech (who was checking for something else) mentioned it to me in a kind of by-the-way fashion. I won't bore you with how normal the, uh, renal output is, just take my word for it.

I'm not freaked or depressed by it or anything. I mean, think about everything you have two of and what it would be like if they were conjoined.

It could be worse.

Thief

Boy, does this bring back memories.

It was the first time I had been hired for a real supervisory role, aside from a rather half-hearted string of assistant-manager stints at movie theaters while in college. I worked for a language school in Tokyo, had worked there fore nine or so months as a regular teacher. There were four local schools, and four supervisors, one for each school. Two had been forced out by union activity, and the other two were leaving anyway, so the school had to hire for the whole local chain. The four that had been there each had 40-hour-a-week schedules, 30 hours supervising and 10 hours teaching. Each was paid a rather handsome amount by language-school standards, I believe in the range of $50,000 a year, if memory serves.

When the word had been put out that they were seeking replacements from within the school, I was interested, of course. The pay was good, the hours no worse than I'd been working, with more desk hours, which at the time was attractive (it was the 50-minutes-teaching followed by 10-minutes-prepping cycle that could burn you out rather easily). So I applied. What I wasn't ready for was the idea that the school was planning to screw me over royally.

My first missed clue was when they planned to hire three of us instead of four. I should have guessed that they were planning to take advantage of the clean sweep to try to make a huge savings. This was in the early-to-mid-90's when the economy was dropping out and business was getting tougher. But instead I saw what the guy I was to replace was making and figured I'd be taking over the position, with the salary intact. Certainly, the school did nothing to disabuse me of the idea, said nothing about any change in status.

One of the reasons I got fooled was the liaison, the American head teacher for the whole company, call him John (not his real name). John, I realized later, would have been great on a used car lot--he had the same ethics but had a more wholesome, almost deacon-of-the-church image he presented. He engendered trust, was good at selling, had the palaver down and had a talent for stringing you along, making you believe that the check was in the mail, though he'd been telling you the same thing for months and it had never arrived. (I should have figured it out when I found out he was an Amway salesman on the side.) That, and I was still gullible at the time.

Another big clue we (I and the other two candidates) were going to get hosed came when the hiring process was about done. We were the final candidates, but the managers were keeping too much from us. They refused to tell us how much the positions would pay, for example. We knew we would be hired as "assistant" supervisors, but it was made clear that this was only temporary, and that after a probationary period there was the chance of formalizing the full position. It had also been made clear that while we were on probation, we would receive probationary pay. But they did not tell us what that probationary salary would be, nor what we would get once we passed probation--they left us to assume it would be the full amount. It turned out there were even more layers to it than that, in fact. But again, we were trusting, and fell for all the salesman pitches they threw at us, like them asking strongly and repeatedly if we were going for these jobs "just for the money." Truthfully, I could reply that I wasn't--the experience would be valuable, I knew--but there was no denying that the money would be nice. We knew what the previous guys had been paid, and the managers knew we expected to get the same.

When they asked us to make our final decisions, we asked how much we'd be paid. They said it hadn't been decided yet. Now, when have you ever heard of anyone not being told how much they'd be compensated before they were asked to commit to a job? But they had the power and we were gullible, and they had the money-doesn't-matter responses in their pocket, and they knew we wanted the jobs and expected enough. So we said "yes." And immediately after that, they told us what the pay would be, as if we wouldn't see that they lied a few minutes before when they said the pay hadn't been decided yet.

And the pay was dismal. Almost $15,000 a year less than the previous supervisors. More than that, we were expected to do more with a lot less time, a fact also revealed only after we'd committed. Where the previous four supervisors had 30 hours desk work and 10 hours teaching, we three were given 15 hours desk work and 25 hours teaching, each. For the supervisory work, a drop from 120 man-hours a week to just 45, about 1/3 as much time to do the same work. For about 30% less pay than the people before us.

If we'd been smart, we would have told them to shove it right then and walked away. But that would have entailed quitting altogether, a very hard thing to do, and there was still the prospect of full pay after the probation.

Here's another point. If you are told that you are being hired on probation, how long would you assume probation would be? Again, the fact that we still trusted them to be fair worked against us. We assumed the standard three months. I had never, ever heard of any probation being other than that period of timed without said time period being specified. We all assumed three months. And so, after three months, when we asked when the review would come, John replied, as if sincere, that the probation was of course one year, why would we ever assume three months?

Well, we were pissed again, and we groused amongst each other again, but the alternative would be to quit and we still weren't ready for it. By the end of one year, however, that changed.

This is where the Dilbert cartoon becomes relevant. You see, I performed very well not just in the first year, but in the first month. The previous four supervisors had worked 120 man-hours a week, and most of their work went into scheduling. The school's schedule was flexible, which meant people were changing hours frequently, and finding substitutes was a constant task. The previous supervisors had binders with clear-plastic slip covers for each page, with each teacher's schedule on a single piece of paper, the book full of all the teachers' schedules. If a sub was required, the supervisor would have to go through the binder, sheet by sheet. First they would leaf through to find teachers who had that day off, and would call them, one by one. If they could not find a sub that way, they'd have to start leafing through from the beginning, this time looking for someone who could tack two or three hours onto their current schedule, thus filling part of the sub time. They'd call each teacher on the list for each segment, and if they found someone willing, they'd tell that teacher to hold on and then start yet again with the binder list, this time looking for teachers to fill in the remaining hours. If they found no one to complement the hours filled by the first willing substitute, they'd have to start all over again. And since teachers were often unreachable by phone (this was before cell phones became ubiquitous), the process was extended even further.

When I started working (and was given two of the four schools to manage), I found it was impossible to do the same job with the reduced hours. I essentially had the job two people had done in 60 hours weekly, and had 15 hours to do it in. Their system was impossible with the time they gave me. After two or three weeks of working dozens of unpaid overtime hours and still being swamped, I invented a new system out of sheer necessity. Staying late at the office several nights, I redesigned the sub-finding system with a computer using a spreadsheet program.

Instead of having a binder with separate pieces of paper for each teacher's schedule, I made daily schedule sheets with everyone's schedule for each day of the week on one page; each row would contain one teacher's schedule for that day. Teachers were lined up, sorted by starting hours. All the teachers with the day off were at the top; all the working teachers listed below, with teachers starting early nearer the top, down to the teachers working late at the bottom. Each teacher's phone number and availability info was right there. When one teacher called in sick, took a personal day, took a vacation, or otherwise got time off, all I had to do was pull out the sheet for the day in question and immediately see (a) who was fully free and (b) how I could divide the shift between the remaining teachers. That last point saved the most time: in advance, I could build scenarios and groups of matched teachers who could fill slots, thereby limiting the number of people I had to call, allowing me to focus on the most likely combinations first. Usually, just by asking a few people strategically instead of almost everybody in alphabetical order, I could fill the slot. A task that would have taken hours became a quick activity.

I then made up sheets such as these for the other supervisors as well, and kept them up-to-date. As a result, our jobs suddenly became doable; had I not come up with that solution, the school would have been forced to give us more desk time or hired more supervisors. Right there I saved the school tens of thousands of dollars a year.

That was not the only thing I accomplished, either. I settled the school down from its union jitters. The union had dissipated when the sole holdout had left for greener pastures, but there was still a great deal of friction between management and teachers. I helped allay a lot of that by making further refinements to the supervisory position, which allowed us to throw out a lot of rules the teachers hated. I made it so that the teachers would not have to request time off more than a month in advance. I refined the paperwork so the school saved more money and the teachers did not have to fill out so many forms. I had a lot of east-west liaison knowledge under my belt, and smoothed a lot of the Japanese-management-and-western-teacher friction that had contributed to the prior union mess. And so on.

So when the one-year probation period ended, I knew I was sitting pretty. Every time John had come by, he had nothing but praise; when I asked if he had any comments on how I could improve, he always remarked on what a great job I was doing. I knew I had not made any screw-ups worth mentioning, and I had made a lot of major accomplishments. The promotion and raise in pay would surely be mine.

What an idiot I was.

When the time for the meeting came, John again mentioned what a good job I had been doing. Except... the Japanese office manager, my immediate supervisor, had noted several months before that I had made a mistake. Frankly, I do not recall the exact details, but the incident was one where this manager and I had miscommunicated. We never had found the root cause, and it was likely a language error. But it had been between just the two of us, had cost nothing in productivity, and had been all but forgotten a few days later. But John brought it up as an "example" of my poor management skills, proving that I was not ready for a full supervisory position. When I asked for even one other "example," John refused to do so. When I pointed out that I had asked him if there was anything I was doing that needed improvement and he always said I was doing great, he dodged the question and said it was upper management's decision. When I pointed out how much I had achieved, John stressed the importance of trust with upper management and so forth. But in recognition of all I had done, John said he would personally push for me to get a $100 a month raise.

In short, I was Alice in the Dilbert cartoon. I was getting royally screwed. Served me right, for trusting them after they exhibited such weasel-like dodges from the start, but it hurt no less for that realization. I let them screw me, and should have known better. From that point on, I knew that keeping a job was far less important than maintaining my dignity and self-respect. I should have been ready to fold and leave the table after the first signs that they were being dishonest with me. But for most people, quitting is like failing, even if the fault is not your own. And the uncertainty of finding a new job is frightening. Both of these combined are enough to make you withstand far more than you really should. I learned that lesson. Fortunately, the next serious job I got is the one I have right now, which is the best I've ever had. The conditions are great and my relationship with my employers is excellent. But I'll never again place myself in the situation I suffered before.

Knowing all this, you can likely now understand my reaction to the Dilbert cartoon. To be of immense value to a company which then uses a stupid, useless, piddling charge to deny one the rewards the company owes. But maybe its something you can't truly feel unless you've been through it.

Anyone got stories?

A Blue-Eyed Buddhist

I've known Paul Cox (in the cyberspace sense) for quite some time, since late 2003 at the ornery.org discussion forums, and since mid-2004 as a frequent reader and commenter on this blog. He's always been more reasonable than I, looking upon the world with cynical yet fair-minded eyes. We don't always agree, but I always respect his opinions.

Recently Paul has started a personal blog, A Blue-Eyed Buddhist. It took me about five months before I committed to a full-bore entry-a-day blogging routine, but Paul is going daily right out of the gate. And his intel & analysis is very good; he provides highly detailed explanations and well-sourced and well-reasoned deliberation on matters political, social and personal. There's quite a bit of politics so far, but it is peppered with a variety of others topics, a style I enjoy (though his are probably a lot more substantial than hamster videos and eyelid twitching). And I'm not just saying all this because of what he wrote in his first entry.

I'm signing up to be a daily reader. As you may note, I have added Paul's blog to my linkboard on the right-hand sidebar on the main page, and I hope that if you come to visit here, you will visit Paul as well. It's hard to get a blog started and begin a readership, so help out, and whenever possible, please provide links to the blog elsewhere to help the site get established.

After Further Review...

That's what my father suggested I should use as a title, the same phrase used in football games after a ref's call has been challenged. And so, as it turns out, I'm not going in for surgery.

I figured surgery was necessary, as did my parents, my aunt (who is a GP), and her husband (who is an anesthesiologist). I mean, look at the x-ray. How could that heal correctly? I thought the doctor at the E.R. was nuts for suggesting it--he didn't even suggest surgery, I had to bring that up.

But my aunt's brother-in-law is an orthopedic specialist, and he said I should not have surgery. That the intervening area will fill with collagen, and then with bone, and it should not impede my abilities. If I were a runner, then maybe, but I'm not. There would be too little to gain, and the risk, hassle and expense of surgery on the loss side. The doctor said he would be giving me a spinal block, not an ankle block. There would be a risk of infection. And then, the pins would have to come out next April, which would mean more surgery.

So I'm not going in for surgery. Go figure. That'll leave me more time to do what I need to one-footed. But it won't let me travel into Shinjuku for the remaining final exam nor the graduation ceremony--I'll have to leave a note to be read to everyone. I'm ordering pizza a lot more, and am putting off going to the store until I really need to. So it's immobile in bed for me for the time being, which means I'll be getting my grading done a lot faster this semester.

Not that fate isn't having fun with me in the meantime. The gas system in Japan is such that if there is any irregularity, the system shuts down automatically. I have to go out my front door, open a cabinet in the wall, and hold down a button for three seconds, then wait a few minutes before I attempt to turn on the gas again. I thought it only got tripped by earthquakes and the like. But I believe I have just figured out that another condition for tripping is if you use too much gas for too long--on the assumption that there's a leak therefore. And because I'm now home all the time and prefer to use gas heating instead of the air conditioners, the gas heater is on all the time (I have a big place). So every 24 hours or so, the gas trips off. It just did it for the second time as I was just starting to shower. Imagine the prospect of getting dressed, walking out the front door, holding down a button, then coming back inside and waiting--when you have a broken foot and are buck naked just about to take a shower. Not an easy task, and frustrating as hell, particularly with the timing.

I caught on to the possibility that prolonged gas use triggers the stop mechanism when this morning, at 8 am, while I was still sleeping, the doorbell rang. I couldn't ignore it because it could have been my airline ticket for next week, which the travel agent said he'd deliver sometime soon. It turned out to be the gas meter reader, enquiring why my gas use was more than double what it was last time. It was because I started using my gas heater, that's why. So I had to wake up and crutch my way to the front door for that. Lovely.

Well, enough of my whining and moaning. I'll still post soon on what's involved in a hospital stay in Japan, despite my not going now. I'd heard about it before but had forgotten. Coming soon.

Surgery It Is

Unless a relative we've contacted through a few branches of the family who is an orthopedic surgeon gets back to us and says not to, I've arranged for surgery on the foot. It is, I am told, a spiral fracture of the fifth metatarsal. The doctor I spoke to said that he would perform a simple surgery, just two pins or screws to hold the bone together. This as opposed to five screws and a metal plate, a more involved surgery that would result in a stronger (or perhaps he meant more stable, less easily re-broken) repair--but would also require two weeks either in the hospital or being completely immobile, neither of which are particularly likely for me at this time and under my current circumstances.

Still, even this smaller surgery will require a 4-day hospital stay--I check in at 2 pm the day before surgery, get operated on the next morning (they'll use a spinal anesthetic, so the doctor told me), put in the pins/screws, close up with a dressing and keep the foot in a splint (not a full cast, apparently). I then spend the rest of that day and all of the next day in a semi-private hospital room, and then the following morning I'm released. And that's not too many days before I go on my trip back to the U.S.! Busy busy...

So I just hope that nothing else goes wrong in the meantime. I'm trying to arrange for a wheelchair at the airport (crossing that mammoth space and an hour waiting in lines while on crutches? No thank you) as well as hopefully special seating on the flight. I tried to get my ticket pushed back a few days, but the airline couldn't do that for me--they referred me back to my travel agency, which would only do it for full cancellation charges plus big fare hikes for later flight dates. A broken foot along with a doctor's recommendation mean nothing to them, alas. But (just found out now) they are mailing me my ticket so I don't have to go to two counters and wait in those lines--though of course I'll still have to check in, naturally.

The hospital visit itself will be blogworthy of course. And while I'm there, I'll have to figure out how to keep my blogging streak straight. A little of pre- and post-blogging at either end, I think. I do have a few entries in the can which should get me started, and then when I get back I can back-post what I wrote while in my hospital bed.

Nothing but for for me!

Guess What

The good news is that this probably won't prevent me from traveling back to the U.S. for Christmas. That's about the only good news there is. The bad news is that I will have to cancel just about every birdwatching trip from now until January--and this was gonna be a huge birdwatching time for me. I just arranged to join a birdwatching group going to Mt. Fuji on Dec. 10th. And I had at least a half-dozen big-time birding plans made up for when I returned to the SF Bay Area.

So much for all that.

How it happened was that I was going to attend a party today. I spent a while last night preparing, using the Internet to get detailed information on the multi-transfer train trip, printing out schedules and station maps. I recharged my iPod, and chose a good book for the 2-hour train ride. This morning, I got up, showered, dressed, got the Italian Salami and chocolates I had chosen for the pot luck, and went out the door, right on time. Five feet out the door, I slipped, fell, and heard a distinct "crack." Two and a half hours later, I'm back home from the emergency room, writing this.

I suppose there is one other slightly positive aspect: I won't have to limp into school on crutches every day. We just had the last class yesterday, and only two final exam periods are coming next week. After that, graduation the following Saturday.

However, right now, I have to decide about whether or not I'll be having surgery. Money is not a big deal, the operation would probably cost no more than $750, really more than triple that but with the Japanese National Insurance paying 70% it's much cheaper (here's where all those payments come in handy). The doc I saw in the emergency room seemed ambivalent--6 weeks of healing without surgery, and the bone heals as is (see the photo), rebuilding in the gap you can see there. With surgery, the bone heals straight, and takes 4 weeks to get better. Right now I'm leaning toward surgery, but frankly, I know nothing about the ins and outs of all this. So now for some research.

Arts Day Video

So Friday was the Arts Day Festival for the college, and it went very well. Me, I was sick as a dog, but slogged through the day somehow anyway. My part was editing a video that had been shot by the students, a 20-minute film including interviews with performing students and clips of their performances. We also had an ending sequence a la "There's Something About Mary," in which the cast lip-synched the words to a song--"Build Me Up Buttercup" in the case of the movie, but we went with "What I Like About You." Some fun stuff in there.

For now, I'm uploading a movie file of just the introductory part, a 4-minute segment spoofing the Indiana Jones movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark (remember the opening sequence where Indy steals the golden idol? That part). Last year, we had a bit of a Star Wars parody which went well, and so we got more ambitious this year. It's amateur for certain, loaded with continuity errors and other goofs, some unintentional, some forced by restrictions on where we could film. But it was all good fun, and worked out well enough. Everyone got a good laugh from it at the festival. There are parts you won't recognize if you're not from the school. For example, the school made a good promotional video one year and got an award for it, a little golden statuette which has been sitting on the counter in the front of the main office for a few years. Everyone in the school knows about it, having seen it all the time, which is why we used it as Indy's golden idol. Similarly, we used items familiar in the school to replace elements of the Indy sequence--a Boggle game used in classes instead of Indy's bag of sand, a microphone from a school tape recorder in place of Indy's whip. Hopefully, the localized touches won't make you miss much.

The file is available as a QuickTime movie file (35 MB), or as an .m4v movie file (20 MB, also compatible with video iPods). Please try the .mv4 file--it's the fastest and smallest (in megabytes) compression type, and has the same quality as the .mov file. You may need the latest QuickTime installation (which you should have anyway).

click image to download the m4v file (20 MB);
if you get a string of nonsense text, come back and right-click
and download the movie for desktop viewing.

click image to download the mov file (35 MB)

Let me know if there are any problems with downloading.

Here's a bit of a fun quiz: how many continuity errors and goofs can you spot?

When I get a chance, I'll try to put a copy of the whole video up. You'll need broadband to get it, of course, just like this video.

More on the rest of Arts Day soon.

Finalizing the Arts Day Video

If you've read my blog over time, you know that I edit the video done each year for my college's Arts Day Festival. This year it's a 20-minute video, and it took forever to put together. Not a masterful piece of art, but we do rip off Steven Spielberg's Raiders of the Lost Ark before getting to the meat of the action. I spent more than 12 hours finishing up the video today, hence no thoroughly-researched political commentary today. I gotta get to bed... but the video (in reduced size, of course) will be put up on this site tomorrow or Saturday.

Eyeing the prize, a school award for a promotional video we made. He's got the "Boggle" counterweight ready to go.

The shutter for the 1st floor office worked nicely as one of Indy's ominously-closing trap doors.

Cell Phones on Planes

Well, that would be just great. Like everyone else, I get the feeling that I'm the one who always attracts the unwanted neighbors on planes. Certainly I have not had luck in terms of the forward seat: over the last several years, on every flight, the passenger in the seat in front of me reclines his or her seat all the way back for almost the whole flight. I've been luckier with squalling infants, and so-so with passengers dominating arm rests and jabbing me with elbows. But allowing cell phones? I dread the day.

I just can't see how the airlines could agree to this. Hell, they more or less insist that you close the window shutter during the time most people sleep; how could people get to sleep if a passenger nearby is gabbing away? Not that I get much sleep on planes, but I like to at least rest. And it would be hell for me to be stuck on a plane for hours on end with that distraction. I can only hope and pray that the service is not active over the Pacific Ocean, where I do most of my flying.

Now, Internet access on flights, that's a horse of a different color. The worst noise that could come from that is keyboard tapping, which when lost in the background roar of the jet would be hardly noticeable. No problem there.

But even more desirable than that is the idea of power outlets, which are now available only in first class and maybe business class on some airlines. If you've ever tried to use a laptop for prolonged periods of time on an airplane, you know what I mean; on international flights, your laptop runs out of juice long before the flight is even half over. You need an adapter cable to plug in to an airline power outlet, but if an airline were to add that feature to economy class, I would consider that a huge plus.

This and That

Some unrelated bits and pieces for today.

Bush's choice for the replacement for Sandra Day O'Connor is drawing reactions as confusing as the choice itself. The candidate is Harriet Miers, White House counsel.Democratic Senator Harry Reid is said to have urged Bush to select her. She has no experience, zero, as a jurist, and has never argued a case before a high court, Supreme or appellate. She's not a constitutional scholar. She started work for the Bush White House as a deputy chief of staff but also as a staff secretary. She has no paper trail. She's a Bush loyalist and crony. The Republicans don't like her, at least on the surface and on first glance. Bush chose someone without a paper trail, a cipher, which is usually a move which indicates that he's got a rabid conservative but wants to hide it so he can get an easy confirmation. Or it could be he's doing whatever he can to avoid a fight now that he's very weak. Miers apparently thinks that Bush is the most brilliant man that she's ever met.

What in the name of hell is going on here? There's obviously a lot we don't know. Speculation at this point is pointless. Stay tuned.

Though I sold my old TiBook (which got replaced by my new AlBook), the ads persist for a while and now I am getting far more enquiries than I was before I sold it. One of them came from a guy in, believe it or not, Nigeria, telling me that his laptop broke and he needs me to ship mine to him right away. I don't know what his scam was, but hell, a guy from Nigeria, world capital of email fraud, wants me to ship him my PowerBook? I don't care what "safe" payment plan he has. And maybe he really is legit. But I'd have to be stupid to take the chance, even if I still had the computer to sell. Which makes me figure that those 419 scammers have ruined anyone trying to do business from that country--probably no one wants to do business with anyone operating from there anymore.

Check out Firefly. It's really good. Weird how Fox (whose entertainment branch does a decent job, apparently not at all connected to the News branch) aired the series' episodes completely out of order, showing the 2-hour pilot episode last and not even airing 3 of the 14 episodes made. Like with the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles (the ones with Sean Patrick Flanery as the teen Indy, not the episodes with boy Indy), when ABC kept changing days and times, taking it off the air for weeks or months and then airing a few episodes here or there. Sometimes networks seem intent on sabotaging good shows. Cancel Dark Angel after two seasons and run dreck shows for three times as long? And Futurama, even after five years, what the hell were they thinking canceling that?

Anyway, it has me wanting to see the new flick Serenity, though, as usual, it's all mucked up for Japan, which might not get the film at all.

Paramount has semi-left the Toshiba HD-DVD camp and says they'll support both HD-DVD and Sony's Blu-Ray. That makes a majority of major studios siding with Blu-Ray, along with Apple and the greater number of corporations, though Microsoft and Intel recently signed on to the HD-DVD ticket. Disney, Columbia (owned by Sony), and 20th Century Fox are on the Blu-Ray ticket, which Warner Bros. and Universal still are on the HD-DVD side, though Warner Bros. is expected to follow Paramount's move and put one foot in the Blu-Ray camp also, thus weakening HD-DVD that much further. It may even prompt Universal to follow as well, and that could be the beginning of the end of HD-DVD.

In case you haven't been paying attention, Blu-Ray and HD-DVD are the next-generation DVD players designed for HDTV content. Current DVDs store from 4.7 to 8.5 GB on a single side, which is not enough for the new high-definition media. The new DVD formats use higher-wavelength blue lasers to pack more data into a disc the same size as today's DVDs. Toshiba's HD-DVD can save 15 to 30 GB on a single side (single- or dual-layered), while Sony's Blu-Ray can save 25 to 50 GB (single- or dual-layered, though a 4-layer version could get as much as 100 GB on one side). The two formats are incompatible, making this to be a fight along the lines of the 1980's VHS vs. Betamax struggle, which (of course) Sony's Betamax lost due to Victor's decision to open-source the VHS standard. Beta was introduced in 1975, by the way, and conceded defeat as late as 1988, 13 years later. Know anyone with a Betamax machine?

Sony looks to be the winner this time, though--despite the fact that HD-DVD was designed for easy manufacturers' upgrade to existing DVD production technology, Blu-Ray offers more features and better speed in addition to more capacity. And while HD-DVD was supposed to get an early start, they had to delay the release of their product so it gets released about the same time as Blu-Ray. In addition, Sony is going to include Blu-Ray in the next version of the popular PlayStation video game player, which will pump up production and bring prices down faster. And Sony got the jump on selling Blu-Ray machines here in Japan.

But there's still a heated argument over which side is going to win. Hard to say, but as you could tell in this writing, I have a feeling that Blu-Ray is going to come out the winner.

Update: Intel, which last week jumped on the side of HD-DVD, is now wavering, saying that it may also put one foot into the Blu-Ray camp, if Blu-Ray can deliver a certain kind of copying technology.

Good Night, Tennessee Tuxedo

Would you believe that comedy actor Don Adams' funeral will be attended by a hundred heads of state and masses of journalists? No? Uh, would you believe dozens of heads of industry and scores of Inspector Gadget fans? No? How about two dozen boy scouts and a reporter from the National Enquirer?

Don Adams, a marine in WWII and of course best known as a comedy actor, passed away at age 82 on Sunday. He survived his daughter, Cecily Adams ("Moogie" on Deep Space Nine) by one year. Rest in peace.

Help

Sean has done a great job of listing places where you can donate money for and get information about the relief operations after Katrina. Please visit and donate. I've dropped $200 of my own via my family back in the U.S. Now you can feel all guilty and do it too.

A Bit of Rain

Well, the old satellite dish isn't getting much of anything right now--zero on the reception scale, with 12 or so being necessary for a signal and 25 or so being the average on a clear day. Fortunately, I don't have anything to record till tomorrow, maybe Sunday if I catch stuff on reruns. Good thing, too--nothing but a blank screen would show up.

The reason? It's pouring out there. Big raindrops, and lots of 'em. Thunder and lightning. The works. I wouldn't be surprised if flash floods were predicted in some parts (not for me, I'm on top of a hill). I certainly would not want to be one of those homeless people with a tarp-and-wood shack on the usually-dry main riverbed of the Tama right now. One guy out there has lots of dogs. I hope he and they get to safety, if the water rises enough to be a threat. It's supposed to rain tomorrow, too.

And here I thought rainy season had ended. One thing's for sure, we aren't in danger of having a drought this year. And the weather radar from an hour ago (I use TBS, they're in English and have pretty good data) doesn't seem to show much rain at all in the local area. Strange.

But wet.

Bailout

Don't you hate it when people bail on you without having the decency to at least inform you? This is, apparently, far more often when dealing with people through ads.

I've been trying to sell my old Powerbook that way. Four people write, clamoring for a meeting, wanting to buy. Each makes the original email, then a reply to my answer. Slowly, each one drops out, indicating this by reverting to silence, refusing to answer emails, after having insisted on scheduling dates and times and locations. By the time the date for meetings arises, only one person is still in contact, confirming the meeting the night before.

And she never shows up. Fortunately, I have her cell number. I call it. She never left home. Instead, she emailed me just a few hours before the meeting, knowing that I could easily be out already and can't access email. How sweet.

Time to place another ad....

BIG Earthquake

It's mostly over, but it's still rocking as I write this. That had to be the biggest earthquake I have ever experienced. More as news comes in.

It also felt close, by the way--while the later shakes were horizontal, the first ones were vertical.

Update 4:40: Okay, it's being reported as a 5.7 on the Richter scale, 90 km beneath Chiba. So it wasn't nearby (I guess the later shakes were the better indicator), but it was close enough, and it sure felt big as hell here in Eastern Tama. If it was that powerful here, I hate to think about what it must have felt like in Chiba...

Update 4:43: Just felt a small aftershock. The epicenter seems to have been close to Narita. Addendum: No, closer to Chiba City, with 10-15 km. Farther from Narita than from Chiba.

Update 5:20: According to this page (a Japan quake page I just discovered), the quake was felt most strongly in East Tokyo, even stronger than in Chiba. On the Japanese scale of 7, the quake registered a strong 5 in Tokyo's Adachi Ward, and a "weak 5" in Edogawa and Ota Wards. In Chiba itself, the quake registered only as a weak 5 in six locations. The quake registered as a 4 as far away as Atami City, Shizuoka, more than 100 km distant.

Update 5:42: Reports coming in: no deaths or even injuries reported so far. One partially-collapsed building in Edogawa, some small fires across Tokyo, and trains stopped and delayed all over the region. There's a fireworks show at 7:20pm in Chofu today (near where I am), and so some people might be delayed or inconvenienced by the train stoppages.

So Long, Scotty

Among the news of the new Supreme Court nominee and Karl Rove, another piece of news came in: James Doohan just passed away, at age 85 (a good run, I wold think). Some things you might not have known about him: He landed on Juno beach on D-Day, and was hit six times by machine gun fire. One shot took off his middle right finger (which he hid on screen), four hit him in the leg, and one in the chest--which was stopped by his silver cigarette case (an ironic instance of smoking saving your life). He had 9 children from three marriages, and his last child was born when he was 80 years old. And he never got tired of "Beam me up, Scotty."

On a side note, Gene Roddenberry passed away in 1991, and DeForest Kelley in 1999.

You Can Really Feel the Local Ones

Tonight there was a small quake, but from the moment I felt it, I knew the epicenter was close. And sure enough, the epicenter was less than 10 km away from where I live. You can feel it from the direction of the quake: if it feels like it's jumping straight up and down, it's local.

I might be wrong, but that's how it's always felt to me. I guessed tonight, and I guessed right.

By the way, it was a 3.6 on the Richter scale, at 9:14 pm, 60 km below the surface. Felt it here as a noise rattle and then a bump, all quick.

That Was Fast

The new Harry Potter book arrived today, from Amazon Japan. But then again, it's past midnight Friday in Japan, though not yet in the U.S. And just past midnight in the U.K. Not to mention that many (resellers and libraries) have had the book in their possession for some time now. In any case, I've got a bit of reading material now. It will be very interesting to compare this with my brother's work.

Update: apparently, Amazon Japan mistakenly sent a lot of the copies out a few days early. I got mine delivered within an hour after the worldwide release time, so not early but not really that late, either.

Harry Potter Fan Fiction Trilogy: Phoenix Intuition

And so we come to the third and (I believe) final installment in my brother's Harry Potter book series. His first two installments, Harry Potter and the Veil of Mystery, and Harry Potter and the Ring of Reduction, covered the sixth and seventh years of Harry Potter at Hogwarts, following Rowling's first five books (picking up at the end of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix) and ending Harry's years as a student at Hogwarts. Veil and Ring were written in the same style as Rowling's books, covering one year at Hogwarts, and written in the "third person limited" point of view--that is, the story is told completely as the protagonist views it. Each of these two novels were also long, equivalent to perhaps a 1000- to 1200-page book.

This last novel, Phoenix Intuition, breaks those rules in many ways. First of all, it is not written in the third person limited; it is in the third person omniscient, and often leaves Harry to view other events outside of Harry's experience. Second, Harry is no longer a student and this novel does not restrict itself to the Hogwarts calendar--in fact, it starts several years before the main events in the story. Third, the novel is shorter, about half as long as the previous novels. And fourth, the story not only incorporates real-world events, but is set on a world stage. So if you're looking for a different kind of Harry Potter novel, written by someone whose writing is excellent and tested, then this will be a good read for you.

Since Phoenix Intuition relies somewhat heavily on the previous two novels by my brother, I would strongly suggest reading the other two before picking up this one, otherwise you won't know a lot about what is happening. Also keep in mind that these three fan fiction books assume a branching of events after the end of The Order of the Phoenix; they diverge--sharply, would be a sound guess--from the direction Rowling is taking in her sixth Harry Potter Book, The Half-Blood Prince, due out in less than a week. So if you read The Half-Blood Prince, assume its events take place in a different Harry Potter "universe" or "timeline."

Please find the novel presented here in PDF form, in two versions: U.S. Letter (8.5 x 11) size, for those who wish to print the entire book out on your printers (496 pages), and B5 (roughly 7 x 10 inches) size, for easier reading on a computer screen. A text-only version for those who will read on their iPod, PDA or other plain text reader will be released soon; look to this post or the main Harry Potter Fanfic entry.

Enjoy.

Taking the Plunge

So I just got off the phone with the Apple Store, having ordered the new Mac. Should arrive in about a week and a half. Got the 15" PowerBook G4 SuperDrive model running at 1.67 GHz, with optional U.S. keyboard (which causes the delivery delay).

Now to order an extra Gig of RAM.

I'm probably also going to order a Bluetooth mouse, though I don't see many out there that look too attractive. But MacAlly has a new model, called the BT-Mouse, which sells for $50 and looks like it's well-put-together. It's full size (most BT mice are minis, which I don't like at all), and has the third button just below the scroll wheel, also where I prefer it.

The mouse won't be available for a few more weeks, but I should be able to get the RAM at about the same time as the computer arrives, which will be nice.

Anyone want to buy a used 800 MHz DVI TiBook?

Widgets I Like

With Apple's Tiger, comes Dashboard, and with Dashboard, a horde of Widgets to choose from. Apple's initial set has a few good ones--the Weather widget is good, the translation widget is fun, the Dictionary widget is excellent, and the calendar isn't bad. But there's a wealth of new widgets coming out on a daily basis, and from that you can pick and choose the dozen or two that you can use on a daily basis. Here's what my own dashboard looks like now:

Two sites which have most of them are Apple's own widget download page, but even better is the Dashboard Widget Showcase. New widgets are added all the time, and they have a pretty good collection so far.

Among my favorites:

Reversi: a simple game, but it works well. Which is more than I can say for the solitaire game that came out early as a widget--that one was hard to operate, and just kinda sucked. But Reversi works as advertised, and can be quite distracting. At the medium setting, I can usually beat the computer--but the widget allows for two humans to play as well. A very well-execusted widget here.
iCal Events: recently updated so that it displays the events in all your calendars at once, this widget will alert you to all of your coming appointments in the next day without having to open the actual iCal app in which you set the appointments. Not a huge convenience, but it is a convenience--especially for someone like me, who often forgets to check his calendar....

Then there are a few Timer widgets:

the one on the left is iChrono, and provides a service I've lacked on my Mac for some time: a simple stopwatch function. This comes in handy when my students do their PowerPoint presentation projects, and one of the grading elements is timing.

The other widget, on the right, is the Countdown Calendar, which does what it says, though it also counts up, as I use it to count how many days of consecutive blogging I've done.

Others I have include widgets that search sites like Amazon, the Internet Movie Database, Wikipedia and song lyric databases; "This Day in History," a metric/currency conversion tool, a word/quote/joke-of-the-day widget, and a simple digital clock are also nice. But you'll find the ones that you like, and will build your own custom dashboard.

There are a lot more, and I suggest that you regularly visit the download pages I've linked to above--new, interesting widgets are coming out all the time.

Harry Potter and the Ring of Reduction: Whole Book Files

Okay, for those of you who have been patiently waiting for Ring of Reduction fanfiction novel to be released in whole-book form, here it is, in two different versions--one PDF and one text-only. The downloadable PDF file has 12-point Garamond text at 1.5x line spacing. I intended to have two different PDF versions, one B5 and one US Letter, but repeated attempts at the US Letter sized files failed for some reason. I'll have to come back to that in a day or two and try from scratch again.

So instead, I just have the B5-sized PDF version. B5 is an international paper size a bit smaller than US Letter. If you prefer larger lettering, you can use this to print out an enlarged version on US Letter size, probably scaled at 115% of normal size. In this format, the book is 1255 pages long, not including the Table of Contents, and weighs in at 4.6 MB. This format is better for viewing on a computer screen, should you prefer to read it that way.

Also, there is the plain text version, which weighs in at 2.4 MB.

The main Harry Potter page will be updated in the next day or so.

Harry Potter and the Ring of Reduction: Remaining Chapters

As a testament to how a book can grab your attention and make it hard to put down, I pretty much mowed through the remaining chapters of Ring of Reduction in a matter of a few days. which is saying something when you're trying to do proofreading and editing while working at your full-time job. So here are the remaining chapters of Ring of Reduction. The "whole book" and text-format files will probably follow this tomorrow or the next day (could be later, I have to construct a table of contents and perhaps churn out two differently-formatted files).

More Harry Potter Fan Fiction: Ring of Reduction, Chapters 4-9

Okay, I've finished editing chapters 4-9 of Ring of Reduction. Things are going faster than I thought, and with luck, I'll be finished with the whole text in a week or so. In the meantime, enjoy more adventures of Harry Potter!

These two set weigh in a bit more than the last one, at 580 KB and 680 KB, respectively. A few stats for the record: so far, 113 people have downloaded the entire-book file for The Veil of Mystery since it was made available about four weeks ago, 24 have downloaded the entire book by chapter segments, and another 18 have downloaded the text file, for 155 total downloads. And since three days ago, 22 have downloaded the first three chapters of Ring of Reduction. Several dozen visitors have come in from search engines looking for Harry Potter fan fiction... though some of the search terms suggest that not all of them are looking for, um, this kind of story.

Harry Potter and the Ring of Reduction (Fan Fiction)

As promised, I've been formatting my brother's second Harry Potter fanfic novel (year seven), Harry Potter and the Ring of Reduction, sequel to Harry Potter and the Veil of Mystery. When I did the same for Veil, I responded to requests and released the entire book before I was finished formatting and editing out typos, and as a result, the original PDF file was far from presentable (unless you're not bothered by typos and bad formatting). So this time, I'm not releasing the whole book at once. Instead, I'll be releasing it in eight three-chapter segments, and then when that's finished, I'll post the entire book as one file. Since school has started again, it won't be blazingly fast, but I'll do the best I can. If you don't like waiting between chapter segments, then you might want to hold back and wait for the whole thing to come out at once.

I'll be introducing new three-chapter segments in individual posts, but they will also be added to the main Harry Potter post linked to in the sidebar at right (which you'll notice is now changed to add Ring of Reduction). So you can bookmark that page if you want to see all the file links at once.

Without further ado, here are chapters 1-3 of Harry Potter and the Ring of Reduction:

Now, That's a Noisy Neighbor

So I'm just sitting around my apartment today, doing odd jobs and getting ready for classes tomorrow, and I start hearing some sort of music being played, the muffled sound-from-the-next-apartment kind of music that anyone who's lived in an apartment knows all too well. Wanting to know where it was coming from, I did the usual check: I listen at the wall joining my apartment with the next one (I live at the end of the building, for good reason, so there's only one unit next to mine), I open windows on the other three sides to see if it's leaking in from there, I even get up on the table to see if that makes any difference, in case it's coming from above. But nothing seems to localize it. But then I put my ear to the floor, and that most certainly decided it--it was coming from below. And it was very recognizably an electric guitar, someone using an amp in their apartment.

Still, it was muffled and not too loud except when I put my ear to the floor, but after an hour I decided it was loud enough and sporadic enough to be a constant distraction and annoyance if I didn't say something and get the person to stop. I would certainly not want this kind of thing to go on for a long time, unabated.

Now, you might think that if an electric guitar on an amplifier isn't that loud, then the person must be showing some restraint. However, you might not know this type of apartment building. In Japan, there are two basic types of construction for multi-unit housing. They are typically referred to as "apartment" style and "mansion" style (Japanese use "mansion" to refer to condominium-style housing, no connection to large, expensive homes).

Apartments are built kind of like cheap hotel rooms; you can hear your neighbors quite well. I've had more than my share of these. My last place was like that, and I could hear every cough and snort and other unseemly sounds made by my chain-smoking next-door tenant.

Now, "mansions" are a different matter. They're built strong, with concrete walls at least a foot thick. Noise is usually not a problem. Let me give you an idea: the couple who live next door to me moved in about 2-3 years ago, and when they did, the woman was pregnant, and gave birth soon thereafter. For all of that time, I did not hear a single baby sound from their place. I might hear the occasional muffled knocking around when they're moving stuff in their closet, or if they're nailing something into a wall. But not any sounds that don't involve hitting the building structure. And I play my TV fairly loud sometimes, even after midnight, and I sometimes ask my neighbors if they can hear anything, and they always report that they never hear a thing.

So that's why the guitar sound was definitely over the line. If it can be so loud as to come up from the floor below, through all that concrete, then it was way too loud. So I went downstairs, and before ringing the doorbell, listened at the door for a moment. And yes, there it was, seeming to come through the door. So I rang, and after a moment, a nice lady answered. When I asked her if someone was playing an electric guitar in there, she surprised me--she reported that it wasn't coming from her place, it was coming from the apartment below hers.

Now, that's noisy. It must have been terrible for this lady. I mean, when I did wall and window noise checks, I couldn't hear the music very much--only from the floor did it sound loud, which means that it was not traveling through the windows (which seems kind of strange to me), and not really a whole lot through the building structure, either, or else it would've been strong from the walls as well, or at least I would think so.

The downstairs lady reported that there was a young teenage boy down there, and when his father was out, he would often play his guitar in a way that she could hear quite loudly. She told me that she had complained many times, but it didn't really do much. She had not yet reported the noise to the complex management, though I certainly would have, and long ago. The kid must have been playing the guitar even more loudly than usual for it to get all the way up to my unit, two floors above.

So I went down one more flight, rang the doorbell, and sure enough, there was the kid, and sure enough, he was playing the guitar. He said he'd stop, and he did, but I still emphasized to him that if people two floors up could hear it, he should really use headphones instead of speakers for that kind of thing.

So I'm keeping an ear open for this kid now. The lady below me may be more tolerant, but if the kid keeps this up, I won't have any reservations about reporting it to management.

I Felt That One

It happened at 4:52 a.m., but it would've been hard to sleep through. Although the quake was only 4.3 on the Richter scale, the reports say that the epicenter was in the Eastern Tama Region. Meaning it was literally smack under my feet. And it felt different as well. There was a precursor sound a few seconds before a definite crack of the building moving and shaking. It was short, but packed a wallop.

Neighborhood Garbage Police

Isn't this just spiffy. I had a late night last night--as I often do--and did not get to bed until 3:00, or to sleep until 3:30 or so. Just one of those nights. Now, all too often, I get a phone call from some sales person or something of the like to jar me awake, but this morning was different. At 7:05 am, I get a loud knocking at my door. Some guy out there is insistent on talking with me. I open the door, and there's this guy in street clothes who starts talking to me about the garbage bags. Pink for unburnable, yellow for burnable, we have these nets, and all this other crap. About how it is illegal to use the wrong colored bags.

Starting to get more than just a little annoyed, I inform him that I use the right colored bags and who the hell is he to wake me up at this hour? He asks if I ever put regular shopping bags with stuff the birds might like to eat out into the unburnable garbage area, and I tell him no. Then he defiantly shoves in my face a plastic envelope that has my address on it, which obviously came from my unburnable garbage, and says the crows scattered it everywhere. I go to look out a window overlooking the garbage area (as I turn to go away, the guy snatches the plastic envelope with my name on it and said something probably to the effect of "this is evidence!"), and sure enough, stuff is strewn out everywhere. But I know I put nothing edible for the birds in that trash, so I go down with him.

It turns out that some idiot put some regular non-colored plastic bags with foodstuff into that pile and the crows tore them apart; overeager to find any other food, they also tore into five or six other bags that were in the correct color bags, one of which happened to be mine.

So this self-appointed garbage enforcer finds something with my name on it among a heap of torn-open bags and he decides to bang on my door at 7 am in the morning to accuse me of being the one to do the damage.

Swell.

Once I pointed out how so many bags were opened, and that the stuff in the non-colored bags was not mine, but the crows just tore everyone's bags apart, he turned apologetic. But the damage was done. I was just too damned tired to do anything but sternly tell him not to wake me up at that hour of the morning unless the building is one fire and slog back to my apartment. But it's too late. After all that, there's no going back to sleep now, and in three hours I expect the repair guy from Toshiba to come around and tell me why the DVD-R burner on my thousand-dollar digital video recorder isn't working, so I don't have the time even try to get sleepy and get enough shuteye to do myself any good. Perfect timing.

Next time I'll be sure not to put anything with my name on it in the garbage.

Harry Potter Fan Fiction: The Veil of Mystery, The Ring of Reduction, and Phoenix Intuition

I am rewriting this post because all three books are now done. Let me introduce the situation. My brother has begun writing fan fiction, and he's done so with a vengeance. He prefers not to be identified by name on the web, and goes by the handle "Semprini," a Monty Python in-joke.

So far he has written three novels based on the Harry Potter series. The books pick up where Rowling's fifth book (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix) left off. They diverge from the original novels there, so you will note quite a few contradictions between them and Rowling's sixth book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Essentially, my brother's books finish the Rowling series and then some: The Veil of Mystery is book six, The Ring of Reduction is book seven--the end of Harry's time at Hogwarts--and Phoenix Intuition takes place a few years after Harry graduates. So if you begin reading The Veil of Mystery, it is advised that you re-read Rowling's The Order of the Phoenix so as to remind yourself where things stand.

All three of my brother's books were completed before Rowling released The Half-Blood Prince. My brother may or may not write another Harry Potter book in the future, but if he does, it will likely be quite different from the novels he has written, and may be in a very different time and setting.

The books tend to be long. Both Veil and Ring would be more than 1000 pages each if published in hardcover form. We're talking more than 400,000 words each. Phoenix Intuation is about half that length.

You might also be surprised at the quality: they are extremely well-written. I'm not just saying that because it's my brother, I mean it. Many readers have even said they prefer my brother's book six to Rowling's version--and frankly, I agree. A matter of personal preference, of course--both authors take the series in different directions, which will suit different people in different ways. But to be compared favorably to Rowling is no small feat.

It should also be said that the novels are written for an older audience. There is an strong tendency to weave in elements of morality (without getting even near "preachy"), current events, and observations of interpersonal relationships. In contrast to Rowling's books where characters act in ways that are forced by drama or mystery, my brother's rendition of the characters is more in line with real life, the way responsible and rational people act--and yet he maintains drama and mystery.

The books are presented here chiefly as PDF files, readable on any computer. For a Mac, just use TextEdit. For Windows, use Abode Reader or any other application with PDF ability. The books are presented in B5 paper size (roughly 7" x 10") to be more readble on a computer monitor; if you print out on US Letter-sized paper, there will either be very large margins, or the typeface will appear a bit large. The third book has a US Letter version; in the future I may translate the first two books to this format also. The first two books also come divided into sets of three chapters, and have plain-text formats as well.

All of the below files are in PDF format. Chapter group files range from 360 KB to 880 KB in size; the whole book file is 4.2 MB.

Download Plain Text version (2.2 MB)

And...

The files below are in PDF format.

Download Plain Text version (2.2 MB)

And finally...



This completes the trilogy. Again, keep in mind that these three fan fiction books assume a branching of events after the end of The Order of the Phoenix; they diverge--sharply, would be a sound guess--from the direction Rowling is taking in her sixth Harry Potter Book, The Half-Blood Prince, due out in less than a week. So if you read The Half-Blood Prince, assume its events take place in a different Harry Potter "universe" or "timeline."

If you read them, please let me know your thoughts and feelings so I can pass them on to my brother.

By the way, is the B5 size working out? Would anyone prefer US Letter or A4 size for printing, or does everyone read it on the computer?

Harry Potter and the Veil of Mystery

Want to read the next Harry Potter book, now?

On July 16th, about three months from now, the sixth installment of the Harry Potter series is due to hit the bookshelves. It will entail the happenings of Harry Potter's sixth year at Hogwarts, and is eagerly expected by its fans.

Too eagerly, in one case.

My brother decided that waiting wasn't good enough, so about a year and a half ago, he started writing his own version of the sixth book in the series. When I learned of it, I was surprised--I hadn't known that he could write fiction. When I read it, I was even more surprised--it was very well-written.

Now, there are a lot of people out there who write fan fiction (there are even Harry Potter web sites which feature this kind of fiction), but most of what is written is not of very high quality--plot, dialog, and prose can be downright amateurish in most cases--and most of them are in short-story form. Well, not this particular work. Not only is the writing of good quality, but the book is about a thousand pages long, longer than Rowling's own work. It does not ramble, however--it follows a very specific and intentional storyline, picking up exactly where Rowling left off at the end of book five, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

The book has a very well-defined plot, carrying on a logical track stemming from the foundation of Rowling's five books. There's a lot of fun, as well as some serious introspection, and a good amount of philosophical thought on morality, relationships, life, and death, without being preachy about it. the book is not written for children, but for a more adult audience while still keeping true to the spirit of the Harry Potter stories.

And my brother didn't stop at just one book--the seventh novel is also complete (or nearly so), finishing up the seven-year storyline, and again weighs in at about a thousand pages. Needless to say, he went on quite a writing binge over the course of the year or so it took to complete both books. He plans to write another Harry Potter book later on, picking up the story in Harry's adult life.

You should know that if you have not read books one through five, this may be confusing as there is a lot of background to the story. But then, if you haven't read the whole series, then you may not be interested in reading this anyway.

I have converted the chapters into PDF form, so if you have a Mac, you can open it with Preview (I recommend viewing in full-screen mode), or on a Windows machine, you can open it with Adobe Reader, which can also install a browser plug-in that allows direct reading in the browser.

I will be presenting the book in chapters, the first one today, and eventually, the whole book in one gigantic file. The first three chapters ("An Owl Gathering," "A Summer's Day at Hogwarts," and "The Wizard and the Boxer") weigh in at 415 KB for 96 pages. The format is B5-sized paper with 3/4-inch margins to accommodate easier reading on computer monitors; the text is in 12-point Garamond, 1.5-spaced, with chapter titles in the Harry Potter "Lumos" font. Soon I will create a special web page for the book and chapter downloads with a link to it in the right-hand column of this blog.

Any comments, feedback, opinions or suggestions are welcome. Here it is:

post edited 4/12/05

Daylight Saving Time

For those of you who keep in touch with others in the United States, you should be mindful that Daylight Saving Time (DST) has come into effect. As the old saying goes, Spring Forward... so Americans have set their clocks an hour forward, making the time difference between Japan and the U.S. slightly different--one hour more different, or less, depending on how you count it. I don't like counting back--for the West coast, 16 to 17 hours back is just too much trouble. 7 to 8 hours forward, then subtract a day, is easier, at least for me.

We have been 7 hours behind San Francisco for the winter, so San Francisco will be 8 hours ahead now. 11 pm here is 7 am (the previous day) there. If you're ever unsure, check this page with a World Clock, and go here if you want more info on DST.

Tonight

Tonight was a good night.

Montgomery Burns' Blog And Black Hole Fireballs

It's going on at Talking Points Memo. I like to read TPM, but Josh Marshall can, at times, go almost too deeply into a subject. If you need any and all information on the Social Security situation, that's the place to go for single-minded coverage. But even then, it's one of the better political blogs to read.

But now, apparently, Josh is off to get married, and so he has a guest blogger. When I saw the name, I thought, "hey, that's the same name as that other guy. Whaddaya know." But then I realized, from the intro at the top which I'd missed before, that it was him--Harry Shearer, cast member of The Simpsons and into a few hundred other things, is guest blogging on TPM. Subjects include his being called to jury duty with Christina Applegate for the Robert Blake trial.

Ehhhhhhhhxcellent.

Oh, and by the way, they now think that they're creating black holes in labs, which quickly explode in fireballs 300 times hotter than the sun. The black holes explode, that is, and not the labs. Well, not yet, anyway. And I'm not kidding. And they reassure us that the experiment "is not thought to pose a threat." Oh, well, so long as your that certain.

Sunday Morning Calls

What is this with people calling on Sunday morning?

I'm a late-night person. By myself, I have some trouble getting to sleep before 3 am. That would, by the way, put me in trouble in mid-summer, if I stayed up past 4 am, because the sun would rise (no DST here, and we're on the east side of a time zone).

What my night-owl habits mean, however, is that I don't get as much sleep as I'd like on the weekdays, when I have to get up to go to work (regardless of the fact that my "early" waking hour is downright "sleeping in" for most people).

So I use the weekend to catch up. Or I try to. Many times I'll have something I have to do early enough on Saturday, like yesterday when I had a morning class to make up for a missed session earlier in the semester. But, I tell myself, Sunday is the day. I'll sleep in real late then.

Of course, that's when the morning phone calls come. Sometimes they're from work. Sometimes from friends (who then get the when-to-call lecture). Many come from solicitors. But most come from wrong numbers. Maybe people shouldn't try to dial numbers when groggy on a Sunday morning, I don't know. Today's was at 9 am, a woman who called, and at least had the decency to get out "sorry!" in English before ending the call. (most wrong-number callers just hang up right away) But by this time it's too late, there's no going back to sleep.

I gotta learn how to shut the phone off at night.

Rude Awakening

As if I don't have enough trouble getting to sleep...

Just a few hours after I managed to doze off, I was awakened rather sharply by the room moving around beneath me. A particularly strong quake shook us up here at 4:46 am. It felt like one of the stronger quakes I've felt, and no wonder--it was a 5.4 and the epicenter was not far, only fifty kilometers or so from where I live. Central Tokyo must have felt the jolt even stronger. Needless to say, it took me a few minutes to get back to sleep after that one.

So I wake up this morning, and we have some snow. At least here in the Tama area. None on the ground as yet, but still, a nice touch--as long as it's this cold and precipitating, I'd rather have snow than rain.

Trekked Out?

Since Gene Roddenberry came back in 1987 to resuscitate Star Trek on television, it has been on the air in one form or another for the entire eighteen years up to today. In 1993, when The Next Generation had one year left, Deep Space Nine went on the air. A year later, Voyager joined in and the two Trek shows ran concurrently. When Voyager went off the air in the Spring of 2001, Enterprise picked up the ball that autumn and has been running since. TNG, DS9 and Voyager each ran for seven years before they were retired--but it looks like Enterprise will not be so lucky. After the end of this, its fourth year, Star Trek: Enterprise will face cancellation--and it looks like no fan uprising will keep it on the air.

The reasons for cancellation are pretty clear-cut: it's doing badly in the ratings, so much so that its rich demographics can't save it. Part of the ratings problems have to do with the fact that it is on UPN, which is not exactly a powerhouse of a network; part has to do with the fact that it has not been the most appealing show on the air; and part of it has to do with the fact that it was tossed into the Friday-night trash bin (like the original series was in the 60's) where it has languished this year. Paramount has its 100 episodes which will keep the show alive in syndication, and for them, that's all that is necessary. And hopes that the show might be picked up by the SciFi channel, like the popular, long-running Stargate SG-1 series (now in season eight) after Showtime axed it, have been dashed by Exec Producer Rick Berman, who says the show won't be shopped around.

Which is too bad for Enterprise, which was just getting its footing. Each Trek series got off and running at different times, and Enterprise, which got a good push last year with the season-long "Xindi" arc, has been doing much better this year, winding plotlines and Trek "history" from the original series into the Enterprise storylines. But probably the most important improvement has been that Rick Berman and Brannon Braga finally let go of their control to the show and gave it to Manny Coto, who improved the show tremendously. But it came too late--Berman and Braga let go only because they knew the show was doomed.

So now they're talking about giving the franchise a rest, which might not be such a bad idea. But what it really needs is new blood. Berman and Braga had been with Trek ever since it began its current run in 1987. Eighteen years is too long for two people to be in control of the franchise, and their stagnant direction has been one of the biggest reasons Trek has not been doing well. Hopefully, when Paramount decides to revive the franchise again in four or five years, they will be wise enough to seek out someone talented and fresh, with a respect for the show and the fans.

I Think Our Standards Are Dropping

Jogging became a popular means of exercise for a great many people, as a way to lose weight and stay healthy. Then it seems like doctors eased up a little, and said that all you need is a nice, leisurely 20- to 30-minute walk. What will be the new exercise regime of the future?

Fidgeting.

What's next? Tapping your feet? Breathing hard?

You Gotta Love This Stuff

The Huygens probe has landed successfully on the surface of Titan, and has beamed back pictures as well as a bonanza of data, far more than mission engineers had hoped for. The lander was supposed to collect about 2 1/2 hours of data on the descent, and then only a few minutes of data from the surface. But the probe continued to send out an extra two and a half hours of data to the Cassini satellite for relay to Earth, after which Cassini had flown too far away to receive any more data.

The photo shown at left is the first from the moon's surface, and was colorized to match the data received from the probe. A great many photographs of Titan from the descent and landing are available, but so far are raw images; cleaner, sharper images, larger in scope once the panoramic elements are successfully stitched together, will doubtlessly be coming soon. This particular shot shows small-to-medium-sized "pebbles" starting less than a meter from the probe, possibly made up of ice.

The atmosphere is also noticeably thick. Even if you knew that Titan is the second largest moon in the solar system (after Ganymede; both moons are larger than Mercury) and the only one with an atmosphere and clouds, you may still be surprised to learn that its atmosphere is thicker than the Earth's, and while primarily nitrogen (like Earth's), its other major components are apparently methane and cyanide.

This March 25th will mark the 350th anniversary of the moon's discovery by Dutch mathematician and physicist Christiaan Huygens (read the entry on him).

This mission marks yet another success for space agencies, recently plagued by a variety of failures. Both this mission and the Mars rovers Opportunity and Spirit--also both drastically exceeding their expected lifetimes--have been spectacular showcases for how space exploration is done right. (Opportunity is now inspecting its own discarded heat shield, pictured below, found quite a distance from the landing site.)

We're getting treated to an enormous wealth of photos and data about Mars and Saturn this year, and all I can say is, money well-spent. Give us more of this kind of thing!

Cassini at Iapetus

One of my favorite moons in the solar system is Iapetus, and the Cassini probe just made its closest flyby of the moon a few days ago, at the end of 2004. Iapetus is an alluring moon because of a fascinating surface feature: an incredibly high-contrast swath of blackened material over much of its surface. Look at the first image here: it looks like you are looking at the shadow side of the moon, but that is a full-on bright side view; the "shadowed" areas are the dark swath I mentioned.

Other features show themselves at this distance as well: note three very large impact craters, the largest located on the left edge. Also note a ridge on the middle right that leads to a small visible rise on the limb of the moon (see below). There will be some talk about whether the ridge is related to the dark material, which is as black as coal.

The contrast can be seen even better in this time-lapse image, taken of the dark side of the moon, brightened by the light side of Saturn.

There is also this image of one of the large craters, caught very nicely in light and shadow.

Cassini also just released the Huygens probe, a package that will, in ten days, fly into the atmosphere of Titan (the largest moon in the solar system, and the only one with an atmosphere) and perhaps give us some astounding data of the satellite close-up.

So far, NASA has been just stellar this year, with the energizer-bunny Mars rovers (images all available here) which have so far outlasted their 90-day lifetimes by nine months, and now the Cassini probe doing so spectacularly well, imaging the Saturn system. We need to hear more praise for this government-agency-that-could.

The Cassini probe can be followed at CICLOPS (more of a diary of events) or at the European Space Agency, but the best page is at NASA, with a great image library, including the latest, unprocessed raw images (which NASA has been publishing from all its missions) in a searchable database. Cool.

Bits of Stuff, January 1, 2005 (U.S. Time)

Bits of leftover stuff that I won't blog on in detail here (at least not yet), but which are still of interest:

The Republican party is all about letting a close race stay final. No more recounts, we won the vote, even if there were huge irregularities and even outright fraud, an election is an election, we won so that's it, stop the counting don't count anymore don't even think of counting any... what? We lost? Well, damn, we have to have an entirely new election! it will be an incredible injustice to everyone everywhere unless we win--er, have an election where we win--er, where there is a fair election, nudge nudge wink wink.

I'm not kidding. The GOP seem to trust machines more than humans, because they loathe hand-counting of votes. But the manual recount uncovered 700 ballots that the machines had misread or had been rejected, and in addition to that, found that some absentee ballots had been wrongly disqualified (many of which were likely from the military). But when the votes were really counted and certified, when the election was most accurately measured, the Republican that lost just couldn't handle it. (At least the county auditor, a Republican, disagrees with Rossi.)

As I've said before, the GOP will do anything to win an election they lost fair and square, no matter how sordid or dirty their method: impeach, steal, or recall--but now we can add "revote" to the list.

What will they think of next?

I was kind of surprised by what I saw on Comedy Central last night. I was watching the South Park marathon leading up to midnight, and toward the end they showed the movie, "Bigger, Longer and Uncut" (script). Now, had I thought about it, I should have foreseen the difficulties involved--half the movie consists of obscenities never allowed on TV; to clean it up, the movie would have to be literally butchered.

So, to my surprise, they showed it uncensored. In this age where networks shudder in fear that even the suggestion of obscenity could get them fined in the millions of dollars, Comedy Central, bless their hearts, showed the whole movie with untold hundreds of f***s, s***s, and other creatively constructed obscene expressions (such as "testicle-s***ting rectal-wart"), including the entire musical number, "Shut Your F***ing Face, Uncle F***er."

They achieved this, apparently, by using he following warning:

TV MA LSV MATURE AUDIENCE ONLY This program is specifically designed to be viewed by adults and therefore may be unsuitable for children under 17. This program contains graphic violence, explicit sexual activity, and crude vulgar language.

I, for one, am impressed. And Comedy Central used good judgment, too--to keep that kind of thing away from the kiddies, they showed the movie late in the evening on New Year's Eve--the one night of the year, after all, when young kids are least likely to stay up late!

Mac Rumor sites are abuzz over what will be released in ten days at the MacWorld Expo in San Francisco. There are always rumors swirling around the new products that Apple so closely guards, and usually they do a pretty good job of keeping things mum. But this time, there is a fairly strong expectations for a "headless" iMac, that is, an iMac without a monitor attached to it--something Apple has never had since it first introduced the iMac in 1998. This would reduce the price of the iMac to maybe $500, and the form factor would apparently be similar to that of the iPod--the computer intended, some say, to attract PC users who have gotten the iPod and would like to expand their Apple experience.

Also reported is the long-rumored iWork suite, which would include Keynote (the replacement for PowerPoint), and Pages (formerly called "Document," Apple's word processor), and, presumably, other apps, likely including the now suite-free apps Mail and iCal. No word out yet on a possible spreadsheet app.

It should be an interesting expo, and probably will be webcast. I'll try to give info about the link for the webcast when I find out about it.

And finally, we have the next step in the GOP's campaign to complete seize all power and disenfranchise Democrats: getting rid of the filibuster. Despite the fact that the Democrats have been blocking only a fraction of the judicial appointments from Bush that the Republicans did against Clinton, Bush has taken 20 judges that the Democrats blocked and recycled them, as Republicans work to get rid of the ability of the Democrats to have any say whatsoever in the workings of Congress.

New Year's Eve

Usually I come back to Japan from my American Christmas vacation in time for New Year's, so I can enjoy the event in Japan at a local shrine where they have fireworks, a traditional Japanese band, shi-shi mai dances, chidren dressed as hyotto-ko, free hot sake, and a nice bonfire. This year I'll be enjoying it at home because of the whole nosebleed situation. The last time I stayed this late was the millennium, but I did not think to ask ahead--my family was planning nothing for the evening, and I would up watching TV at midnight by myself. But this time promises to be better, as everyone who can stay awake is planning to do so, and we'll have a nice, warm little celebration at home.

Happy New Year!

The College and Those Students

I teach great students.

Teaching English in Japan is not always a walk in the park. Whatever difficulties there may be, motivating your students tends to be the most troubling. Teaching can be a joy, but the greatest threat to that joy is a class full of unresponsive, bored students who would rather not be there. Worse are those students who know they don't have to try. Japanese universities are filled with students who come to class only to sleep, read comic books, chat with friends, or even use cell phones (though usually through typing, not talking).

I had a class like that once. It was when I was teaching at a YMCA up in the countryside, in Toyama Prefecture. They would rent me out to local schools, and the least liked of all was the Computer school. This was a "senmon gakkou," or a trade school, where English Language was required on the curriculum. However, it was not really required; the students could come and sit and sleep if they wanted, and if they failed the tests, the teacher would simply be asked to have the failing students re-take the test until they passed--with an understanding that the second test would not be so hard (let's not waste time unnecessarily, after all).

Since the students knew that they'd pass no matter what, and since it was not the core subject of their trade school, it tended to be a pretty horrible class. A teacher would be lucky if they got three minutes of the students being even halfway quiet. If the students just slept, read, or (as many of the girls were wont to do) pulled strands of hair before their eyes to inspect for loose ends, that was a good class. But usually, a class meant that students wanted to gab in Japanese, and that meant the teacher shouting for quiet every four or five minutes when the sound level of the students made it so the teacher could not be heard even in the first row--were there any students listening anyway. One of the other teachers from the Y also rented out to that school became so frustrated at one point, they actually threw an eraser at a group of chatting students. It is not a job you want to have, certainly not for any stretch of time.

So the students I have at my college today are more than just good; they are spectacular. Lakeland College is one of only two remaining U.S. colleges in Japan that have full accreditation from an American agency (the other is Temple University). Students who come to us do so because they want an American education, and they understand that this means actual work, and actual learning. These students want what the college offers. Most colleges in Japan are seen as standard diploma farms--plant yourself there for a few years, and you get a diploma. Students at Japanese institutions know they don't have to excel too much, that many professors only read the first and last pages of their essays, and that their GPA won't matter much.

Students at Lakeland, however, know that they must excel, and by the time they get through the pre-academic language program this has been well-established. But it's more than just the fear of a failing grade--it's in their hearts. they want to do well. And this was expressed better than I could otherwise describe, at a recent lecture event in Tokyo.

On November 30th, there was a speech by former Senator Nancy Kassebaum Baker (wife of US Ambassador to Japan Howard H. Baker), followed by a question-and-answer session, at the U.S. Embassy's Tokyo American Center. After the Senator finished, students from around Tokyo were invited to step up to the microphones. The first person to do so was from Lakeland College. She stepped down, and another student stepped forward--and it was another Lakeland College student. After she finished, a young gentleman came up to the mic--and introduced himself as a student of Lakeland College before asking his question.

At this point, a moderator asked the students of Lakeland College to please give the students of other colleges and universities a chance to step up to the microphone. After all, the audience was full of students from such prestigious colleges as Tokyo University and Waseda (think of Stanford and Harvard). After that request, there was a prolonged silence. Nobody came up to the mic.

After about a minute had passed, a student finally stood up and walked to the microphone to ask a question. "Good evening," she started. "My name is Shizuka Saito, and I'm from Lakeland College." After that, they just let the Lakeland students come. And the questions were not softballs, either. One was, for example: "Senator Baker, in 1996 you voted against a bill that would recognize same-sex marriages. Could you please explain this vote?"

These are the students we have. In the writing class that I taught last semester, there was just supposed to be a simple review and strengthening of the students' writing skills, but every chance they got, they reached for complex, difficult topics to cover, eager to achieve beyond their capabilities.

That's the biggest reason why the job I have now is the best job I have ever had.

Musings on the Fundamentals

Before I even start, let me preface this by saying that I am not an atheist or anti-religion. I am an agnostic with leanings towards Deism, the idea that the universe was created by a being that does not intervene in its progression. These beliefs are founded upon the presumption of non-presumption, that I am fallible and that while I believe these things, I could be wrong (ergo the agnosticism), and on observation and use of reason rather than blind faith or the historic weight of certain scriptures beyond the value of the concepts introduced in said scriptures. I believe faith is a good thing when used selectively with judgment, but I believe that skepticism when used selectively with reason is just as important. People talk about our faith being tested by science, but these people seldom speak of our reason being tested by religion. I see faith and reason as being two complementary attributes of the mind, as religion and science are complementary. I get along fine with most people who call themselves "religious," it is that stubborn, outspoken minority called "fundamentalists" that I am almost always at odds with. And even then, only in the sense of how they apply their beliefs to others, not as much in the beliefs themselves or how they live with them. I may or may not agree with their beliefs or respect the reasons why they believe, but ultimately I respect their beliefs and their rights to hold them.

I am pretty Libertarian when it comes to religion. I see it as a personal prerogative, not "belonging" to any leader or church or nation; that it is purest in the heart and mind of the individual, and when congregated, it is most diffuse; I oppose central authority except where strictly asked for or desired by those under that authority. However, for that authority, whether on its own or in the name of its adherents, to attempt to impose its control on others who are unwilling to comply, to me is a cardinal sin--it is a direct abrogation of those people's religious freedom. You can persuade and preach religion, but thou shalt not force it down anyone's throats.

So you can begin to understand where fundamentalists and I might have problems. I live in a world where one is allowed to question, discover and believe and do what one feels right, where people of any religious stripe could be correct in their beliefs, an inclusive world where nothing is eliminated from the running. Fundamentalists, from my perspective, live, innocently or otherwise, in a world of arrogant presumption based upon the suspension of reason, a world which must be conquered by faith; where something is considered true not because it is observed, reasoned or real, but rather simply because someone of influence wrote it down before. I am sure that they would see me as someone without faith or the conviction of my beliefs, who refuses to allow the clearly apparent love of God into my heart and allows myself to be corrupted by the temptations of Satan, probably as one who is untouched by the Lord and destined to burn in Hell. And probably a lot more, and maybe I have the list of charges wrong, but likely something like that. Neither of these views need be disparaging, but rather only observations of states from the perspective of the observer.

I do not see these people as evil--on the contrary, the reason I respect them most is their sincerity and their actual concern for my mortal soul, and their willingness to work hard to save it. (That does not include the proudly arrogant ones who try to act superior and lord it over others.) It is important to realize that this concern is genuine and is the basis for much of what is being pressed in the public arena today: these people see themselves as being on a holy mission to bring light to the world. While of course there are bad or mean-hearted fundamentalists, I presume that the ones I deal with at any one time are sincere. My problem is where they cross the line of forced proselytization.

Under the fundamentalist creed, those whom they wish to convert must be converted or be doomed; and so to convert them to the Truth, one must somehow present them with the elements of conversion in the manner most likely to succeed. And proselytization works best if introduced young and if introduced as a publicly approved standard. But they also understand that there are certain structures in our society--in particular, the separation of church and state and the principles behind it--that prevent this from being done, and so certain strategies must be adopted in order to sugar-coat the pill, if you will. That is why we get things like school "meditation" or classroom "moments of silence." While superficially conforming to public rules of conduct on separation of church and state, proposals such as these are specifically designed to violate the spirit of said conduct, in other words, to indoctrinate, to proselytize. To introduce that religion as the public norm, the clear implication if it is introduced in public schools. Less subtle attempts at such indoctrination include the press to post the Ten Commandments in classrooms and schools as a cure-all for discipline problems. There is little more the fundamentalists would like than to convert public schools into Christian schools as a means of universalizing religion.

Intelligent design is one of the more subtle efforts. In public school science classes, what conforms to the principles of science is taught. The results of empirical observation and experimentation are presented. Everything that is presented is subject matter that has gone through a prolonged process of theory, testing and proof. If it cannot be proved as an absolute fact, it is presented as theory, that being an explanation for the facts discovered and understood so far, within a framework that stands up to questioning better than most or all other possible theories. The idea of intelligent design was crafted specifically to wedge Creationism into that rubric as well as possible, and then ram it through the rest of the way via public pressure.

The problem is, Intelligent Design is not really a tested scientific theory--it is, as I just stated, a tailor-made form of Creationism designed to look like a scientific theory. At its center is the presumption that complexity cannot arise from random chance. This presumption has no proof whatsoever; it is not even a scientific postulate, rather a simple feeling, usually prejudiced by religious beliefs. What can't such complexity arise out of random chance? The theory is hobbled from the very beginning, and has not passed through strenuous review by the worldwide scientific community--nor could it.

What is frightening, however, is how the fundamentalist viewpoint, while in the small minority, is being presented by the press as mainstream. It is as if the media believes that only those who seek you out to speak or come out publicly to proselytize are of importance, and even a quiet majority can be ignored simply because they are quiet. The fundamentalist viewpoint that the Bible could not by any chance whatsoever be allegory in any way, and that every word in the current English translation of the favored version of the Bible is the literal absolute truth--this view is somehow the view, or at least the primary alternate view being offered these days by the media, and they represent that as the mainstream view.

There are other beliefs, however, held by a much greater majority of Americans (and likely Christians worldwide), that allow for allegory and a reasonable amount of human fallibility in the transmission of the message so that one does not have an old man with a long beard grabbing some clay and splat, there's man--but rather that the processes and evidence we have observed indicate the manner in which God chose to create us. That God created the universe with the Big Bang, that God shaped us by using evolution. A view which not only is true to scripture, but also jibes much more with what we see in the universe around us. The idea that God has to do it exactly as written today in the Bible or it must be impossible is, to me, completely unnecessary, and, since it contradicts what we find in our world, it seems nonsensical. How does it belittle the grace of God to presume that he took thirteen billion years rather than six days to make the universe as it is, that God used magnificent and unimaginably complex forces of evolution to make us into what we are instead of simply squishing some clay and breathing into it?

It seems to me that science discovers and displays to all of us the great and glorious creation which is the universe, and to presume the limited literal scope of what Genesis presents is what belittles that very creation. Genesis is limited to just us humans here on Earth. Did God create hundreds of billions of galaxies, each with hundreds of billions of stars and likely even more planets in each one, spanning the vastness of billions of light-years for no reason except to drop the Earth into it so that it practically disappears? Science has opened our eyes to far more of physical being of creation than the Bible ever could; it would be sad to think we were limited to the one book and miss everything else. And I don't think that such a thing is right.

We have done this all before, remember: the Ptolemaic view of the universe was embraced by the Church (though there was really little support for Ptolemy in the Bible, as I understand it), and as scientific views were therein bonded to religion, any attempt to dispute them or proffer a different theory was met with accusations of heresy. As a result, our science stagnated for perhaps a thousand years. Are we going to let our science be dictated by religion again?

Religion is not science, nor is it a replacement for it. By the same token, science is not religion, and is not a replacement for it, either. Whenever one has attempted to tread the ground of the other, trouble has always ensued. If you hear a scientist claim that science disproves God, they are being a poor scientist--such a claim is unsupportable, not to mention outside the field. But if you hear a 'religionist' claim that the Bible disproves science, they are being equally ridiculous. What are you going to believe, the words in this here book, or your lying eyes? Religion is our tool for discovering the soul, science is our tool for discovering the world. The Bible is a guide for the soul, not a science handbook.

Some say, "To be the Word of God, the Bible must be true." But there are questions as to what is meant by true, and in what sense. True in the literal sense, in terms of days and clays and serpents, or true in the philosophical and moral sense? Is the Bible false if God took 13 billion years and not seven days?

Rationale for accepting both the Bible and what science has uncovered is hardly difficult to see. The Bible was not penned by God, but by humans, and however holy and noble they may have been, they were limited by human fallibility and by the understandings and the mores of their times. Imagine that God told Moses the story of creation. And presume that God did use the Big Bang and evolution and everything else science has observed. But Moses did not understand hydrogen or light-years or DNA, and since God was not telling him the story for his own personal edification, but rather to spread the word to others, he could not just magically give Moses the understanding in any case. So he describes creating the universe to Moses, do you think he will explain the inner workings of the Big Bang, what happened in which microsecond? Of course not; he would simply say that he said, "let there be light." Moses does not have to understand anything else for these purposes. God would not speak to Moses of billions of years, because Moses would not understand numbers larger than the tens of thousands. Just as we allegorize to children when we need to get past some minor but complex point they would not understand, so would God when telling Moses, trying to get to the more important parts; hence, days, not eons. Or if you think that the Bible is a bit more literal than that, consider that the Hebrew word yôm can mean both "day" and "eon," but we prefer "day" now because that's the way the translator went when translating from Hebrew. Or you could go the other way and accept the entire tale as loose allegory, that the creation details were generated by the storyteller because they would have to be there, and we get to the important stuff later.

It is far from necessary to require that the Bible be absolute literal truth, as fundamentalists claim--in fact, it would be much harder to support, both in terms of reconciling contradictions within the Bible and in terms of reconciling scripture with the reality we observe around us.

Fundamentalists often zoom in on flaws in evolution, both ones pointed out by the scientific community and ones they come up with by themselves. And while there are flaws with the specifics of the theory, the basic foundation--that mutations and other factors have changed simpler life forms into more complex ones--still stands strong. Missing links have never been proof against evolution; if you find 750 pieces of a 1000-piece puzzle and fit them all together as well as you can, the fact that 250 are missing does not mean they never existed and the puzzle is therefore unreal. Indeed, the fact that you have found so much proves that the puzzle is actually there, not missing, and that the missing pieces are in fact that--missing--not nonexistent. The facts remain: the geological and paleontological records show that life began as simple, and that as time progressed, that life became more complex and evolved along many different lines.

So how is it disproved? It is not; it is simply that fundamentalists presume it is, and however much their arguments crumble, they maintain that they are somehow correct, simply by faith. But this is a confusing contradiction: fundamentalists are all about faith, but jump on any flimsy "proof" which comes along.

I once worked with a young woman who was (and likely still is) a fundamentalist. She once explained to me proudly how she knew science was wrong about the age of things. You see, in her high school science class, the teacher gave a lecture one day about radioactive dating techniques. He explained that the scientist first estimated the age of a found object (by clues such as where the object was found), and then tested the age of the object via radioactive dating. My friend was able to tell the whole thing was not viable by the simple fact that if the scientist used an estimate at the beginning, and that entered the ultimate equation, the estimate would determine the age found--so the result of carbon dating (the type she was quoting, and which most people equate with radioactive dating) is always the result of what scientists think the age of an object will be. This reasoning made her certain in her belief that the scientists were wrong and she was right.

I was mature enough at that point not to try to correct her. It seemed clear enough that she was not truly engaging in debate that she would call either way depending on the evidence--that her faith was sufficiently resolved that no matter what proofs came up that contradicted her faith, she would always find a way to disbelieve them and stay with her faith. If she were truly inquisitive, then she would have probably, at some point, realized that the reflections of one high school student after a summarized lecture by a high school science teacher were unlikely to uncover so flagrant a flaw in a scientific standard upon which the careers of tens of thousands (probably far more) of highly skilled and educated people based their entire life's works upon, without them noticing that flaw. Nor did she challenge the teacher with the information.

That processing was for only herself, and if I had presumed to lecture her, the end result would not have changed. In fact, there are a series of radioactive dating tests, with carbon dating simply being one of them. Carbon dating is most well-known because it dates the more recent objects. Each radioactive dating test works for a specific range of time--for example, the measurement of carbon-14 in an object is only accurate up to tens of thousand years; the older an object is, the larger the margin of error is because the amount of carbon-14 that remains is so limited that an accurate measurement is less reliable. But there are other tests (some radioactive, some not) beyond that which measure other ranges of time. So when the scientist makes that original estimate, it is not to plug it into the equation and determine the answer, but rather to determine which dating method is most likely to generate the final result. But if an object is a thousand years old and the scientist guesses a million, the guess will not change the results of any test. The test will tell the scientist that the estimate was way off, and you need to try another dating method. It is very much like a mechanic seeing a nut and reaching for the right-sized wrench; the mechanic will guess the size of the nut, but if the mechanic guesses wrong, it will not change the size of the nut. The wrench simply will not work, and the mechanic will know to reach for a different-sized wrench.

That would have made my friend think, perhaps, but there is little doubt about it altering her faith. She might be a bit more thorough in checking out the veracity of future claims, perhaps. But my mission was not to convert her to my belief, so I didn't try, and simply let it lie.

But it did remind me of that point about fundamentalists that seems a bit odd: they seem to love finding 'evidence' and 'proof' that science and scientists are wrong. The question is, why? Especially when so much of the talking is aimed not at scientists but at the 'faithful.' If faith is all you need, then why all the time wasted on 'proof'? Especially when, in the end, it is impossible to prove any religion wrong. If you assume an all-powerful creator, anything is possible. I could posit that the universe was created twelve minutes ago by the all-powerful, one-and-only God Elmer, and everything we see around us was created to give us the illusion that the world had been around for quite a while longer than twelve minutes. You can't disprove it. And all-powerful god can do, literally, anything.

But fundamentalists also speak about something else: testing our faith. I have never understood this particular practice God apparently goes to such lengths to fulfill. God certainly doesn't need it--an omniscient god would know the status of your faith quite well. So the test must be for the individual. But let's reflect on what that test involves. For examples, the existence of the fossil record certainly begs an explanation. If you postulate that the world is 6,000 years old, then how did a T-Rex get buried under far more than 6,000 layers of sediment? Did Adam know and name the T-Rex? Did dinosaurs roam before the age of Noah? One would think that biblical people would have noted such creatures, yet they are absent. Even if you are one to believe that the Grand Canyon was carved by Noah's flood, its' kind of hard to explain everything that we've found. Not to mention that there are a lot of stars and galaxies much farther away from us than 6,000 light years, so if the universe was created that long ago, God had to have created the radiation from these objects streaming toward us as if they around for billions of years. Our world and the universe are full of things that are impossible should the universe be only 6,000 years old.

The answer we are given is that God is testing our faith--creating these anomalies to show us if our faith is strong enough to keep us grounded in the truth of scripture. But I don't buy it. I simply cannot accept that God would go to such incredible lengths to falsify the appearance of the world for that purpose, nor do I see it as a fair or accurate test. After all, what is being tested: the strength of a person's faith, or where they put that faith? And what is faith--would it be our ability to deny the evidence of the physical world and believe something we are simply told instead? Is that really a positive attribute? Am I to be condemned to an eternity of unimaginable suffering because though someone tells me the earth is 6000 years old, I see clear physical evidence contradicting that? Furthermore, is our faith supposed to lead us just to God or is it supposed to lead us to a specific God with a specific dogma? I have what you could call a belief in God, but it sure ain't what the fundamentalists say is God, not in the details at least. Is my faith lacking simply because I don't believe in their version of God? Will I suffer eternal pain because I don't get the details right? And if it is because God counterfeited the world to fake me out, did not the test encourage my failing it? Why not simply tell people the truth and let them acknowledge it? I could go on, but it seems abundantly clear that the whole "testing your faith" deal is a crock.

So it stuns me that the fundamentalists get as much respect as they do. Part of it is that they are not scientists, and therefore do not put their ideas through the strenuous process of verification that scientific ideas must survive. But it is also because they are religious, and despite their continuous wails of how awfully they are persecuted, their beliefs are given far more respect than would normally be granted. In this country, if you are a scientist, you can be lambasted and ridiculed and tarred and feathered. But if you are religious, you are given a respect and leeway to say and do things that you would not otherwise be able to do. Although the fundamentalists so often cry victim, they are anything but.

If fundamentalists want to believe these things, that's their option, and I respect their freedom and would work to protect it, however much I might disagree with it--as outlined above. But, as I also pointed out, their mission is not just to believe, it is to proselytize, to inject their world view into schools, into government, into the public view, and to tear down--not co-exist with--other beliefs.

So while I respect the right of fundamentalists to believe in intelligent design, I do not by any means respect their perceived right to force it on others. They do not have that right, to do so is an infringement against the rights of others, and it should not be tolerated. It is not as if there is any problem for fundamentalists to teach these things to their own children. Prayer, scripture and creationism is part of their belief system, not the school curriculum. If they choose to believe something that is contradicted by observed fact, it is incumbent upon them to 'protect' their children from the world, not to have the world change to their desire. These things also do not belong in any state-funded arena, nor in any venue where attendance by all is mandatory (such as public schools); you can find my reasoning for that here.

This is all why I roll my eyes and sigh tiredly when I see stories such as this one, which seem to be cropping up more and more nowadays. It is as if we are swinging towards a more religion-infused state of society, and by the time things swing back, the fundamentalists may have wedged yet another icon of God into the public domain, like they did with "in God we trust" on money, "under God" in the pledge, and "so help me God" in oaths--none of which were originally part of American life, but got stuck in at times such as this.

So what will it be this time?

Nasal Matters

Well, the nose is doing better, for the moment at least. After it got packed, there were a few small bleeds for the first few days, but then nothing for three days--I thought I was going to be able to fly back as scheduled. But, as it turned out, there were three rather profuse bleeds on that fourth day, two days before the airplane trip--which should have been today. So I had to cancel that flight and we made an appointment to see the doctor again today (Monday).

However, the bleeds stopped after those profuse ones, and things seemed fairly well by the time of unpacking this morning. And indeed, when the doctor pulled out the loads and loads of gauze (which hurt a bit, but the stiff, over-sized multi-inch sponge up the other nostril really hurt the most when taken out)--but without causing a rebleed, to everyone's surprise. So I can be without packing--for a day at least--and get irrigation and air, and then, tomorrow, the doctor goes in with an endoscope to see if cauterization is still a possibility--that could potentially put an end to the whole affair. So we'll see how it goes.

In the meantime, we wait, and I remain as inactive as I can. If possible, I will get back before New Years' and this whole thing will be over. But I've learned all too well not to take anything for granted here.

Tsunami Devastates Southern Asia

Map from USGS, altered

As you may have heard, the fifth largest quake in a century and the largest quake period in forty years hit in one of the worst possible places--underwater in the Indian Ocean, causing a large tsunami with walls up to 30 feet tall impacting shores of Indonesia and of nearby nations, hitting nearby Sri Lanka next worst after Indonesia itself. As of this writing, the death toll is up to 8,600, but that number will certainly grow, and probably will exceed 10,000. (Note: as I wrote this, new stories came out stating the 10,000 mark had already been exceeded). Go here for the time-ranked Google search results on the quake (link should work through most of January, 2005).

The quake hit early morning, and I'm guessing that the areas worst afflicted did not have sufficient tsunami warning services--in Japan, when any quake hits, there is an immediate notification on television about possible tsunamis, and local public warning alarms as well. Indonesia was just hit too fast for warnings to have much of an effect, and India and Sri Lanka were not part of an international warning system.

I include the map at top right because few news pages are showing where the quake hit in the region. The map originally comes from the USGS, from a page on the quake today. If you're interested, here is a page showing the 11 largest quakes over the past century.

The death toll so far:

Indonesia: 4185
Sri Lanka: 3225
India: 2447
Thailand: 310
Malaysia: 42
Maldives: 15
Bangladesh: 2
Total: 10,226

Update: here's a better map, just found via Yahoo Photos.

Merry Christmas

Well, despite the pessimistic views expressed here and elsewhere as of late, there is still good in the world, and there always will be--but look toward people, not institutions, to find it strongest. I tend to believe in the inverse-square law of spirituality: just as the intensity of light falls off by the square of the distance, so does spirituality when removed from the individual. Warmth, compassion, understanding and hope all originate from the human heart. In the glowing brilliance of your homes, find it there and stoke it, keep it alight, and the morning will come.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, whatever turns you on. Good night.

The Nosebleed Seat

Not actually a seat so much as a nosebleed. A major one. Or ones, that is. Bloody. Gruesome. I wouldn't advise it.

They started coming a few days into the trip, after I'd had a throat cold and then an airplane trip. Then a few days after arriving, I got blood in my mouth, and then later that evening, a full-blown nosebleed. I mean it took twenty or thirty minutes to stop, and it was not just a trickle, it was a gusher. I'll spare you the gory details.

Even though Japanese national insurance does not cover treatment in the U.S., and I have no insurance just for the trip (something that will change in the future, I assure you), we figured that we'd get me to a doctor anyway. Well, four days, three doctors, and six or seven nosebleeds later (they would start after almost any activity, finally got three bad ones in one day)--most of them similarly gory messes--I finally got the treatment I needed. I got my nose packed. Both nostrils. It may not sound that bad, but just try having someone stuff WAY too much gauze--or one of those stiff, non-nostril-shaped sponges--down your nostrils, with insufficient anesthetic. It is not fun, trust me.

And yet, if bleeding continues around the packing, we go to stage three: a balloon inserted into the nasal cavity and then inflated. Which they say is extremely painful, so much so that I'd have to be hospitalized for the pain shots. And already, on an outpatient basis, this is costing us hundreds of dollars. Such a stay would be thousands.

Another problem: my flight back. These things don't heal quickly. And a serious nosebleed, of the type from which I suffer, can even be fatal on an over-water international flight. And the tickets are non-refundable, non-changeable. Delaying would cost another thousand dollars.

The only possibility is to have the nose unpacked later this week (assuming no new bleeds take place), and then immediately re-packed; after that, I could take the airplane ride home. A 16-hour ordeal from door to door, arriving home early evening. Then, the next day, to the local hospital in Japan, to have the nose unpacked, and treatment continued.

Not exactly the Christmas season I'd expected. Still, let's hope against hope for the merely miserable.

And now you know why I haven't blogged on the Bush press conference yet. I watched it, took extensive notes, wrote three paragraphs, and then bled a lot. Maybe cause and effect, we'll never know.

Packaging Peeves

Okay, I've probably mentioned before about excessive packaging in Japan. But the U.S. is not without its wastefulness in this area. What I speak of is the Giant Plastic Casing for the Small Electronic or Other Item. The batteries I bought for my new camera the other day are a good example. If you note the total package on the right, six AA batteries came in a plastic case about 20 inches tall. Now exactly why is that? It's not just this, either. Music CDs sometimes come in a case twice as big as the CD, for example. Lots of items here nowadays seem to come in the oversized casings.

But that's not the worst part. The worst part is the Hard Plastic Casing From Hell. You know what I'm talking about. The thick plastic casing heat-pressed together around the item, usually unnecessarily beveled around the edges, which keeps the oversized packaging stiff. It's about as hard to open as any packaging I can imagine. You can't just pull it apart, and cutting it open, even with heavy shears, is a near-impossible task. And it's not just with the oversized casing, it often comes in smaller sizes as well. Whose bright idea was this, anyway? Sure, it makes it impossible for one to get pre-opened merchandise without it going back to the factory for re-casing. But hell, if you want to assure factory freshness, just put a tape seal or something on the damn thing, don't make it so that you need one of those giant James-Bond-Villain lasers to slice it open.

Canon PowerShot S1-IS: First Impressions

For the past two years or so, I've had the Canon Powershot S30, a 3.2-megapixel camera which still today is regarded as one of the best digital cameras out there (though now it's the S45, it's still essentially the same camera). What I've always missed, however, was zoom--the S30 and its immediate kin only do the standard 3x zoom, which really isn't much. Other features--such as better movies, for example--were on my list, but the zoom, on a good camera, was my top want. For some time, I;ve had my eye on the Canon PowerShot S1-IS.

I looked around at various cameras, and almost at one point switched to the Olympus C-770 Ultra Zoom, slightly more expensive and slightly better-rated than the S1; I also trust Olympus' cameras (I had a nice one, until a former girlfriend stole it from me--an $800 camera at the time of purchase, too!), and the C-770 has 4 megapixels to the S1's 3.2, and has better macro features, as far as I can tell. However, the Olympus only takes xD memory cards, and I have grown to respect the Compact Flash type of flash memory card--they are cheapest and have the biggest capacities (the SanDisk Ultra CF card has a transfer speed about twice the xD's, and the 1 GB Compact Flash card is actually cheaper than the largest xD card, half the size at 512 MB). I also didn't much care for the Olympus' interface. So in the end, I went with the Canon.

I've only been using it for a bit over a day now, and in general I am very pleased with it. First of all, the zoom performs as advertised, giving me the extra reach I've wanted for a long time. Canon enhanced the zoom with very effective image stabilization (the "IS" in the camera name), and that helps to get sharper images not only in long zoom shots, but also regular low-light shots. With a regular camera, it took careful holding and several tries to get a sharp image at 1/30th of a second or less, but the new camera makes that a lot easier. It does feel a bit funny not to have the image displayed on the LCD exactly match your hand movements, but that's a very small thing to get over.

Very soon I'll be comparing shots with the 10x zoom versus my dad's S40's 3x zoom, but for now, here is a little example of just the 10x zoom. First, a reduced image of the entire shot I took of pigeons on a power pole and line, taken from across a supermarket parking lot:

The birds are circled at the center. Now, the same shot, at full size, cropped to show the birds at the center:

And finally, a shot taken at 10x zoom, also full-size and cropped:

That's not a bad zoom! I also found a black squirrel in a tree, and managed to get a shot of that with the zoom; for this display image, I had to scale it down by half in addition to cropping:

I still have a lot more experimentation to do, but as you can see, the zoom seems to be doing great so far. Canon's zoom is also very fast and very quiet; I can go to full 10x zoom much faster than I can go to full 3x zoom on my old camera. In fact, most first-time handlers of the camera see the zoom as too fast--hard to get an intermediate zoom because it just zips to the extremes; but with a little practice, you'll notice that an incremental touch on the zoom toggle allows for a slower zoom and perfect control. The zoom is also very quiet, and so can be used while shooting video.

I was a bit worried for a while that this camera had no macro mode. There is no flower-icon macro setting button, and macro focus is not mentioned in the manual at all. But it can take pretty good macro shots without switching settings; just be sure to have the camera fully zoomed out. And while it is advertised as having a minimal focus range of 3.9 inches, I found that I could focus on objects closer than 2 inches from the lens. Here is one photo of a small flower, maybe just less than an inch across, full-size but cropped:

With my S30, I wanted to take photos of stuck pixels on my Powerbook so as to show them to my students in the Computer class I teach, but with that camera, even in macro mode, I could not get close enough to take a good shot; however, the automatic macro mode on the S1 allowed me to take clear pictures of the stuck pixels easily, hand-held, in low light:

So even that, though unadvertised, seems to work better than my previous camera.

The S1, in many ways, is similar to my old S30: both cameras having the same resolution (image size), and the same basic settings and controls. While I would have enjoyed a better minimum shutter speed, 15 seconds (the same as the S30) is sufficient, and I was able to get the following shot (cropped and reduced) of Orion tonight:

That's Sirius in the lower left corner, by the way. I almost even got resolution on the Orion Nebula (the center "star" in Orion's sword, see unreduced image at right), but that's at minimum zoom--when I get my hands on a tripod another night, I'll try a 10x zoom on it and see what develops.

Unlike the S30, the S1 mysteriously lacks a focus assist light (the little lamp that comes on while focusing to help with low- or no-light focusing), a flaw many have noted; however, the S1 seems to focus OK in low light, you simply have to find an edge with enough contrast for the camera to lock the focus on. The S1 also has a slightly smaller LCD monitor--but it is on a very convenient swivel, making it easier to take photos from odd angles and still see what you are doing (it also allows you to turn the LCD screen inwards so as to protect it from being scratched while stored in a pocket or bag). With the S1, Canon fixed what I saw as a big flaw on the earlier Powershots: the "set" button used to be part of the 4-way toggle switch; in order to use it, you have to push the loose toggle switch exactly down, and not tilted to any side, for it to work properly, which is very hard to do. Now the "set" function has its own button, and is much easier to use.

This camera also has a lot of buttons on it: aside from the shutter/zoom toggle and the main setting wheel, there is a power on/off/play button/toggle, a separate button to start recording video, the four-way selection toggle, and ten other buttons--six on the back, two on the top left side, and two more on the lens base (if you don't count the attachment ring release button, that is). One complaint I read was that it is hard not to accidentally press some of them in the normal handling of the camera. I don't find that a difficulty, however; the normal areas for your fingers to go are button-free, so if you just hold it right, it shouldn't be a problem.

The S1 does have a few weak spots, though. While 3.2 megapixels will do fine for me, they could've made it 4.0 at least, or so you'd think. The lack of an autofocus assist lamp is also a serious oversight (or maybe they had to make tough choices, I don't know); and the lens cap is very poorly designed, is very loose-fitting and falls off at the slightest brush. I don't even have to take it off, in fact: just turn on the camera, and the extending lens assembly gently slips it off. For now, I have it awkwardly tethered to one of the strap holders. But I got the lens adapter, which extends just beyond the maximum extension of the zoom lens, and plan to add a UV filter, to act as a sort of transparent lens cap, which should make the regular cap unnecessary.

One more down side, unavoidable really, is the form factor. The zoom lens does not allow for the camera to be slim enough to slide into your shirt pocket, which the S30/45 barely does. The S1 will fit on my jacket pocket, but only with the lens retracted; with the lens adapter, it might not fit so well. But I'm willing to live with that, and might even get a camera case, though I dislike them quite a bit.

I have noticed a strange artifact, that while locking the autofocus in direct sunlight, I sometimes get red vertical streaking on the LCD panel--but it disappears after taking the photo, and does not show up on the photo itself.

The camera's video, aside from being zoomable, is now available as full-frame and full-speed, and will play just like footage shot with a digital video camera. The 1 GB Ultra II CF card I got ($85) is not only fast enough to record the video well, but also can take up to 11 minutes and 25 seconds of such footage (640 x 480 pixels, 30 fps). It's a huge amount to download into the computer, but it could replace a digital video camera if you don't film huge chunks of footage all at once. It saves the video in AVI format, so I'll have to see if that can be imported into iMovie or not.

The S1 runs on 4 AA batteries, either Ni-MH rechargeables, or standard Alkaline batteries. That means you can easily buy extras in an emergency if your rechargeables run out, no proprietary battery packs holding you back, like the S30 has. My father gave me a set of four NI-MH's with a fast charger unit, and I bought another 12 at Costco today (for about $25), so with four sets--each taking up to 500 or so images before quitting--I should never run out of juice again, with or without the backup.

One other personal drawback, I'm buying the camera in the U.S. to save about $150 on the purchase price, but Canon does not have a worldwide warranty like companies such as Apple have--which means if a defect shows up after I go back to Tokyo, I'll have to eat the repair costs in Japan, or ship the camera back to the U.S., taking even longer and adding greater shipping costs. Hopefully, the camera will not need repairs, as my S30 has not--aside from those caused by dropping the poor thing on concrete a few times...

Overall, the camera is extremely satisfactory so far. More on its performance as I go. (And more photos, too!)

On DVD and HD-DVD and Downloading

Boy is this guy stupid:

"...it's a heavier download. That's why we're pushing to get HD-DVD in place," added Parsons. The new technology...has far greater storage capacity than DVDs currently on the market.

"Right now, you can probably download a DVD in two, three hours," said Parsons. "This HD-DVD product is a day's download. And that'll be a big step [for the industry], to make downloading just super, super, super inconvenient."

First of all, this guy must have terrific bandwidth. If he's talking about downloading a whole 4.7- or 8.5 GB DVD in "two, three hours," he must have blazing DSL or maybe a fiber-optic connection, and constant private access to someone with significant upstream broadband. To download a 25- to 27 GB HD-DVD in a day would require similar feats of downloading magic. Most people don't get that kind of speed, meaning that even much smaller downloads can take days or even weeks, and that doesn't faze most downloaders. They just leave their computer on all day and let things download in the background. Doesn't matter much to them.

Right now, downloading a whole DVD is inconvenient for many, unless they have significant broadband. Which is why ripped DVD movies are typically not downloaded whole at original size. Instead they are compressed into much smaller files for easier downloading. An 8-GB DVD is stripped of its extras and the core movie file compressed into a 700 MB file, which can fit on a single CD-R for storage and is still of fairly good quality. That's what might take 2-3 hours--the compressed movie, not the whole DVD--and even then, only if you've got blazing bandwidth and are using the right service, like BitTorrent. Introducing HD-DVD would be no different--it just means a slightly different encoding job for the pirate who originally rips the movie. The time difference won't be so great unless the whole DVD, uncompressed, is made available for downloading, or if the movie file is not compressed as much--but it's the choice of the pirate, not the format of the DVD that determines things.

Not to mention that broadband is increasing. On clients like BitTorrent or Shareaza, with tracker sites like Suprnova or Youceff many complete DVDs are indeed made available whole, because many downloaders do now have the sufficient bandwidth--or extreme patience--to download such a large file. Now, HD-DVDs will not become a popular standard for many years--by which time, broadband will have increased to the point where downloading larger files is even easier.

So in short, the HD-DVD files will be downloadable just like today's DVDs are, with or without compression. Changing the format will do little or nothing to stop piracy. What stops piracy most is making the media itself cheap--which many DVDs are, certainly in contrast with music CDs. How many people are gonna sit and wait three weeks for a download to complete, then have to go through burning the DVD or CD (not always simple) just so they don't have to pay ten bucks to get the original product, which has better quality and features? Not enough to matter, that's for certain. As with downloaded music CDs, downloaded DVDs are not really any threat to the media conglomerates. They just love to act like they're the victims of something.

Epiphanies

As I type, my students are taking their final exam in our Computer class. I design the final exam so that the question portion is on a web page with a form (fill-in-the-blanks are text boxes, multiple choice is done with pull-down menus), which generates an email with the student's answers. My email client (Eudora, by the way) is set to automatically check the email account every minute, though when I notice a student just finished (dancing hamsters appear on their monitor), I manually check the email, which arrives instantly.

The thing that just struck me is the fact that the server for the email is somewhere in the U.S. A student finishes the test here in Tokyo, Japan, sends the results to the U.S., and then I retrieve them from there, seconds later; the answers have traveled halfway across the world and back. It just strikes me as funny, one of those minor epiphanies concerning commonplace but things strange in usually-uncontemplated ways, like what happens every so often when I'm walking down the street somewhere and suddenly it dawns on me that I'm in Japan.

Little Bits and Pieces

I am fighting off a bad throat cold (it seems I get no other kind) and working up to final exams, so not much today. But there are a few things:

Lycos Europe has the right idea. They've got a screensaver that, while the computer is idle and connected to the Internet, junk data is transmitted to web servers known as dedicated spam servers. The idea is to choke them right back, just as they choke our email, blogs, and whatever else they can get their slimy little paws into. Unfortunately, I can't find the screensaver on Lycos Europe at present, though I haven't spent too much time. If I find it, I'll install it.

The yen is at 102.1 to the dollar. This will be a great shopping deal for me when I go to the U.S. You can check up-to-date exchange rates here.

It was great weather out today. Pity I couldn't enjoy it more. Brought in by the unseasonable typhoon, we had 25-degree C temps and crystal clear skies.

This won't be the big headline in Japan tomorrow morning. Not even a little one, I'd wager.

These people need to get a sense of reality. Apparently, a lot of people are irked that the iTunes music store charges differently depending on the country. Well, duh. When is that not the case? For example, music CDs cost under $20 in the U.S., but almost $30 in Japan. Everything costs differently everywhere. You expect the Internet to make things different? Get real.

By the way, Fahrenheit 9/11 finished at the box office with $220,000 worldwide. I'll have to see if anyone lists DVD sales numbers to get the grand total.

One last bit. On the IMDB Studio Briefing, they tell the story of how, when the Wizard of Oz first played on TV in color in 1956, CBS was flooded with complaints by people with expensive new color TV sets. The problem: they complained that the opening sequence of the film was broadcast in black and white.

Bits and Pieces - November 30, 2004

It's been a while since I've done one of these bits-and-pieces entries, so...

Universities and colleges have the right to deny military recruiters access to their campuses without suffering the consequence of the government yanking their government funding. The 1995 Solomon Amendment tied the two together, essentially extorting the schools to allow recruiters full, free access to university grounds so they can sell a military career to students on campus.

A federal appeals court, using a rather odd precedent, decided for the educational institutions--but the government is not backing down. The government is still acting as if the amendment is in force pending their decision to appeal further. And schools know that no matter what the courts say, the government will use its muscle anyway. No one is daring to defy the government for fear of "coincidentally" losing funding (or losing funding should a higher court reverse the decision). Even the plaintiffs remain anonymous.

Music corporations are challenging KaZaA in court. For those of you who are uninitiated, KaZaA is one (and the most popular) of several companies that make software and/or run web sites that facilitate illegal music downloads. The industry is still claiming that their loss of sales is due to online piracy, and not because of the economic downturn that just coincidentally began at just the time their sales dropped.

Already, the industry fights back by using fake song files--that is, files that are the same size and have the same titles as pirated songs, but are fakes--they play the song promised in the titled for a short time, then cut to an annoying high-pitched beep or other alternate sound. Because of the similar name and size, they infiltrate downloads of the real thing.

In both of those respects--suing KaZaA and faking song files--the industry is a bit behind the curve. KaZaA may be the "new Napster" in a way, but there are now a plethora of web sites and software one can use to download music. And just as KaZaA replaced Napster after Napster got sued out of existence, something else is bound to take KaZaA's place if and when it falls.

The U.S. Congress, salivating at the chance to please their big music- and film-industry donors by passing more and more draconian legislation, almost got a bill through Congress that would have taken the music industry's lawsuit frenzy against downloaders and made it a federally-funded program (like that's what we need our law enforcement people doing instead of catching violent criminals).

I tend to agree with Orson Scott Card on this one: downloading MP3s is illegal, but the music industry are parasitic blood-sucking leeches. Additionally, I agree with the argument that the downloads are not really hurting the industry one bit--they're just so greedy that they did not offer an alternative that enough people would accept, although the online music stores are slowly changing that. They're still parasites, though.

It's VHS vs. Betamax all over again, this time for the next-generation high-capacity HDTV DVDs. (Why do new recording formats always come in pairs?). We've had a similar which-one-should-I-buy format battle over recordable DVDs, that being the plus-versus-minus war (now you can get DVD recorders that read and write both formats). The new standards are made by Toshiba and Sony. Toshiba (with NEC) has the "HD DVD" format (really called "AOD"), which can save up to 20 GB of data, a bit more than three times what today's DVDs can save. Toshiba just got the backing of four major movie studios for their format. A consortium led by Sony makes the "Blu-Ray" DVD format, which can save up to 27 GB. Both technologies use a blue laser beam to read and write the data; the higher-frequency blue laser can etch smaller holes into the DVD disc, allowing it to save more data than a standard red laser today.

Toshiba's advantage is primarily that it will likely hit the markets first, before Sony. But Sony, which lost the videotape war to Victor's VHS a few decades back, looks like it will probably win this battle. The Blu-Ray format not only saves more data, but it has a consortium of ten companies, not two. Also, the studios that just decided to back Toshiba can also back Sony's format at the same time to cover their bets.

Meanwhile, Steve Jobs' plan is working. It seems that more and more Windows PC users are switching to Macs because of their iPods. A survey done by a financial analysis firm found that 6% of iPod users have already switched to Macs, and 7% intend to the next time they buy a computer. This trend is expected to continue--but only as long as Apple "keeps that 'cool factor' going."

But there are also people switching for security concerns, and that is also why more and more are switching browsers, from Internet Explorer to Firefox. Now that Firefox has v. 1.0 out and has been very favorably reviewed--with many respected writers urging users to dump Explorer--many are doing just that. Explorer's market share is now between 90% and 93%, and Firefox should have a 10% market share by the end of the year.

I wish I could corroborate that with my own site's stats, but actually my own numbers tell a different story: Firefox mostly takes away from Mozilla, not from IE. Of course, that's just my own little microcosm with a specialized readership. Here, consistently 60% use IE. Mozilla used to get around 20%, but when Firefox came in, that share dwindled to about 10% as Firefox shot up to 10% (in just two months). Apparently that is not market-wide, but at least from people who visit here, the people who are already cool are just getting more cool, is all.

Sleeping Through the Early Voting Hours

At some point, I've got to get some sleep, so I figure earlier is better. It's now about 11 hours before the first polls close, so I'll catch some shuteye then be back for the full action early in the morning, Japan time. Well, early for me.

Pop-ups Are Coming Back

Ever since Mozilla started blocking pop-up advertisements on web pages, I've had a great deal of success avoiding them. In fact, I hadn't gotten a single one for a few years--until recently. I just experienced the second one now, and it's becoming apparent to me that the spammers are breaking through here as well--they're somehow figuring out ways to get around pop-up blockers.

Ironically, it is partially due to Microsoft. In the recent Service Pack upgrade to Windows XP, Internet Explorer was improved to block pop-up ads--likely copying exactly what Mozilla has been doing for so long now. And since IE has such a huge chunk of the market, advertisers felt compelled to find away around it--and in doing so, got around the Mozilla protection as well.

Here's a story which explains it.

So we were doing great until IE moved in. There goes yet another neighborhood...

Typhoon

We're getting slammed this typhoon season. We've been hit by several big storms recently--okay, not so much as Florida, but still, we get hit. For me, this is bad timing because typhoons usually make my satellite TV reception crap out, and tomorrow morning--practically zero-hour for the typhoon--is when the second debate gets broadcast. I may have to listen to it on the radio, or deal with webcasts or something. Damn. Hope the typhoon heads out to sea instead of hitting here... and, oh yeah, it would be nice for those people whose homes get destroyed in these storms, too.

Ungodly Faxing

This usually happens when I make a special effort to get a solid eight hours of sleep. I'm usually a night owl, so going to sleep at midnight is early for me. I have to get up at eight, so that'll be a good chunk of sleep, which I have been lacking of late. So what happens? Some blazing idiot starts trying to fax me at six in the morning. For me, it's over on the first ring; I'm up now and can't get back to sleep. But the idiot has left his machine on auto-redial, so every ten minutes, as I'm futilely trying to get back to sleep, the phone keeps going off, like the Snooze Alarm from Hell.

That's a great way to start the day.

Bits and Pieces, August 20, 2004

Iraq continues to be important for some, that is to say, the families of at least 20 people. George W. Bush may want us to forget about it until November, but the death toll is rising. 20 casualties in the past five days, double the death rate for coalition forces throughout the war.

This probably has something to do with the fact that the Iraqi soldiers that Bush wants us to believe are handling things--that's what happens in sovereign nations, right?--are deserting by the hundreds. We point them to go into Najaf and kill their fellow Iraqis, and go figure, a lot of them are not extremely hip to the idea. And the powers that be don't really want that known:

At an Iraqi national guard base near the border of Sadr City, the vast Baghdad slum that serves as al-Sadr's support base and recruiting ground, 1st Sgt. Khalid Ali described the death threats he and other Iraqi troops have received from the Mahdi Army. ...

But when Ali was asked about the number of guardsmen who have quit since al-Sadr's latest uprising, U.S. Army 1st Lt. Vernon Sparkmon cut him off.

"Certain things, you can't discuss," Sparkmon told Ali. "If somebody asks that question, that's, like, classified stuff."

Oooookay. And by the way, "like"? "Stuff"? Has the military gone Valley Girl?

---

In the meantime, the Iraqi Olympic team, which Bush & Co. have been using as their poster boys for a happily-invaded Iraq, are not quite so happy about Bush using them for political gain. Apparently, Bush has been airing ads which say, "At this Olympics there will be two more free nations – and two fewer terrorist regimes." The Iraqi athletes, however, do not feel the same way:

Speaking after winning their group stage at the Games in Greece, one player said he would take up arms against US troops in his country.

And the team attacked Mr Bush for running re-election campaign adverts featuring the Iraqi team.

“Iraq as a team does not want Mr Bush to use us for the presidential campaign,” said midfielder Salih Sadir. “He can find another way to advertise himself.”

Not exactly what Bush wants you to hear, but real nonetheless--and keep in mind, Bush & Co. want you to think that these were the most oppressed people under Saddam, and most grateful for U.S. liberation.

---

On another front, the Swift Boat Veterans for Smearing Kerry are not having that great a week. The New York Times and Washington Post (admittedly left-leaning publications, but hardly rags) have been tearing them to shreds. In short: the operation was funded by friends of Karl Rove and big-time GOP and Bush donors (most from Texas, wouldn't ya know), and the claims made by the veterans are falling apart faster than you can say "smear campaign." In case you need a scorecard, here's one.

And at least for show, Kerry has condemned an ad run by MoveOn.org criticizing Bush's record (no lies in them, BTW), but Bush still refuses to disavow the Swiftboat smear campaign. How long that can last, who knows--but when even Bill O'Reilly starts casting doubts, you know the case is weakening.

Another good-news point, Kerry has started hitting back hard against the attack ads. This is what he's known to do late in his campaigns, not to let the other side get away with crap, and to fight back harder and harder. And it seems the time is ripe: Kerry is doing well in the polls, and has a huge electoral lead (Bush seems tied or slightly in the lead because his support is deep in some states, which is bad for him electorally); many say that the race is his to lose. Considering that Kerry got no post-convention bounce and that in the past two weeks has been outspent massively by Bush, this is a rather surprising, yet welcome, sign.

---

Other news: Oil is at $49 per barrel, perilously close to the psychologically critical $50 mark (some say $65 is not out of the question)--and a record high, and bad news for the economy. About 60 newspaper editors printed an "astroturf" (fake grass roots) form letter from Bush's web site. A 55-year-old social studies teacher just wanted to see the president speak, but had her ticket ripped up in front of her face, because of a small Kerry/Edwards sticker on her blouse. See, she was a real security threat. Senator Ted Kennedy was "accidentally" put on a terror-alert list that prohibited him from flying, and despite repeated attempts to get Ridge to take his name off the list, the well-known Massachusetts senator was banned from flying for weeks. Yeah, an "accident." Lots of al Qaeda terrorists named "Kennedy" are menacing the nation, I bet. Somebody in the Bush White House having fun, no doubt.

Scoring Some Pimenton and Chorizo

As I've written before, I've been looking for a good source of pimenton, that lovely smoked hot paprika from Spain. And though it is very hard to find in Tokyo, I did find an importer who had some and was selling. It was, in fact, almost comically like a drug purchase.

I went to the importer's office, which was really an apartment in a building in Kami-Meguro. It didn't feel like a business at all, but like visiting someone's home. When I was presented with the spice, it was not pre-packaged--it was put into a ziploc. And I almost laughed when they guy opened the baggie and invited me to take a taste. "Mmmm," I thought. "Some good quality shit here. I'll take half a kilo." I swear, that's how it came down. The illusion shattered when they gave me a printed receipt.

I'm not sure why they had to use the baggie, but it may have been because I wanted the picante, the hot pimenton, rather than the dulce, or "sweet." Apparently most people in Japan who use the stuff prefer the sweet variety; the importer told me that when he makes chorizo, he uses the hot variety. Thus he probably was selling me his leftover "stash" from making chorizo. If I'd wanted dulce, they could have sold it to me in the bag from the maker, La Dalia.

And when he mentioned that he made chorizo, my ears perked up, and when I asked, he happily showed me the different kinds he made, proudly pointing out that there are no additives used in his product. In Spain, where he lived for five years, he says the chorizo usually is made with chemicals to preserve it. So I wound up buying a kilo of those (which was a lot more expensive than the pimenton). When I got home and tasted it, it was good, but not as good as other chorizo I've had. He may have varied the recipe to better suit Japanese tastes (though it is far, far closer to Spanish chorizo than the bland stuff they call "chorizo" in stores here), or the chorizo may have been intended more for cooking than for eating straight, which I prefer. I'll be trying the chorizo in future cooking attempts, see how it works out.

In any case, if you want some pimenton at a reasonable price in Tokyo, try Mr. Hiroshi Ojima at Serrano--but call first (03-3713-2171) to see if he has what you want. If you want to know how to get there, drop a comment and ask for directions (leave an email address, masking it if you like with a URL; if you do that, the email address is secure. You can also ask me to immediately delete the comment as well).

China Has My Passport

I forgot that when you apply for a visa, the embassy or consulate in question requires you to leave your passport with them when you apply. So until Tuesday next week, China has mine. Despite missing out on the discount price of ¥41,000 ($367) and having to spend ¥60,000 ($537) on the air ticket, I figure it's worth it--I have a friend living in Shanghai who'll still be on vacation when I go, and can show me around--I'm not likely to have that opportunity again soon. So it'll be maybe 5 or 6 days in Shanghai and 2-3 days in Beijing, should be fun.

The only concern: how will I be able to blog? My friend tells me that you can buy a card to have wireless access in Starbucks (of course, they're everywhere), so if that works out, I'll still be able to post every day. If not, I'll have to figure out something else, like an Internet cafe. I hope for the Starbucks Wi-Fi, though, as it'll allow me to post photos.

More About Pimentón

I blogged about this about a year ago, this great Spanish spice called Pimentón, a smoky hot paprika used in Chorizo, but I have become so fond of it, I use it on all sorts of foods. It's good on beef, chicken, gyoza, eggs--anything you can imagine that could take a hot spice. The problem is getting the right stuff. I first found out about Pimentón when I went to Spain and asked where the taste of Chorizo comes from. I brought back to Japan with me three 175-gram tins of the spice under the La Dalia label, and when I visited the U.S., I found a few other different brands, Chiquilin and La Chinata. But La Dalia beats them easily--much richer flavor.

The problem was, I was not sure how I could get some, especially from Japan. A friend found some pimentón advertised for sale here, but the price was exorbitant. But as my supply dwindles, I started looking on my own--and found a few different ways to get some. I found an import company in Naka-Meguro called Serrano, and they sell it by the 1-kg bag (and I was just in that neighborhood today, before I found out--dang!). They sell the 1 kg bag for ¥4410, which is $10 higher than quoted in other countries, but considering shipping costs, may not be bad at all! The shop will be open through Monday August 9th, then be on vacation through the 15th, and will re-open on the 16th. Alas, I am too tired to trudge back into town again, at least not today, and am going in on the 10th to get my tourist visa and a dental exam, so I might not get to them until after mid-month.

Yahoo's ChefShop sells it by tins, but I'm not sure how hard or expensive it would be to have them ship it internationally.

And then there's the company itself, La Dalia, which has an English version of its site. I am asking them if they can ship and if so, how much it will cost. They list international distributors, but the closest is in the Philippines.

I'll let you know what comes up, what is the best way to get it, and how much it'll cost.

News Bits -- August 4, 2004

Haven't done this in a while, but there are a few peripheral stories of interest out there today, so...

Conservatives and conservative news organizations were allowed unparalleled access to the Democratic National Convention (will Al Franken get a desk at the RNC? Hope so, but bet not), and unsurprisingly used that access to best sabotage and derail the Democratic message. After each speech, hard-right-wingers like Tucker Carlson, Ralph Reed and others were given the chance to smash & smear the Democrat who had just spoken and Democrats in general. Fox News had a desk there, but used it to do little more than deride the Democrats--they spent very little time showing the convention at all. Mostly it was Bill O'Reilly taking pot-shots at Democrats. For example, when Gore came up to speak, O'Reilly quipped, "We might listen in for a minute or so, but we're trying to stay away from partisan speech in both conventions this year." Stay away from partisan speech at conventions? Isn't that a bit like staying away from sand at the beach? And there's mlittle doubt that at the Republican convention, they'll decide that very little is "partisan."

Fliers from Boston to D.C. were forced to wait two hours while their plane was diverted to Albany, N.Y. Why? To pick up stranded passengers who had been stuck there because their plane had mechanical difficulties. The passengers were told of the diversion just as the plane was getting ready to take off, and they were not happy at all. None of them had ever experienced or even heard of such a thing before (and indeed, airline experts say that this is "extremely rare"). Unhappy, the fliers sat through the prolonged flight, and when they arrived in Albany to pick up the extras, guess who waltzed on the plane with a secret service entourage? That's right: Jenna and Barbara Bush. The US Airways representative claimed that this happened "often," but no one is buying it.

Cheney has someone new to blame for higher oil prices: the Democrats. Yep, it's them pesky Democrats at work again. Apparently, the administration's war in the Persian Gulf, failure to seriously pursue alternative energy sources (despite the tremendous lip service given) and reckless economic "stimulus" packages (i.e., forking over tax dollars to the wealthy) are not nearly as responsible for higher gas prices as the Democrats, who, according to Cheney, drove prices up at the pump--how? By not voting for every last bill for more drilling and oil company tax breaks that Bush tried to ram down the Congress' throat. Yeah. That must be the reason.

Al Franken will be on TV starting in September--or at least on cable TV, the Sundance Channel. I think it's good news, but not nearly enough of it. He's only getting one hour a week (correction: once a day, rebroadcast three times), and supposedly it is slated only to last until the election, though Franken hopes it will last longer than that. I would hope that they get a longer time slot, on a more watched channel (Bravo or something). Still, one can't be too grabby--Air America Radio is still in its infancy, and though its initial key demographic ratings are excellent, it is still in the stages of building an audience. And yet, better TV exposure would help the new network attract more listeners.

In the meantime, we'll be holding our collective breath for this Friday's employment report, which will tell us how many jobs were gained or lost during the month of July. This will be a rather crucial report: June's numbers were down significantly (to 112,000), and if July's are lackluster as well, it would indicate that the "recovery" that Bush grasped at this Spring may have been more of a blip than a recovery. Current estimates report that perhaps 200,000 jobs were created in July; if true, the Bush administration will jump on them, essentially saying, "see? That sounds like a pretty high number!" But it should be kept in mind that 150,000 is considered 'treading water,' the number needed to match population growth. Meaning an extra 50,000 jobs, while an improvement over June, would still be pretty anemic. In the meantime, the market has been down, consumer confidence and consumer spending have sagged, and energy prices are soaring. If this is a "recovery," on can get an idea of what a "normal" Bush economy would be like.

On the lighter side, NBC has offered Clinton the chance to host an episode of Saturday Night Live this season. If he takes it, it should be interesting--and probably damned funny. James Carville had a good story, reported by a member of the Democrats Abroad Japan mailing list: "Back in 2000 a Republican friend warned me that if I voted for Al Gore and he won, the stock market would tank, we'd lose millions of jobs, and our military would be totally overstretched. You know what? I did vote for Gore, he did win, and I'll be damned if all those things didn't come true!"

Including Everyone--And Meaning It

The first day of the Democratic National Convention was very good--we heard good speeches from Al Gore and Hillary Clinton, excellent speeches from Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter. Rousing speeches, filled with a great deal of what needs to be heard, that Democrats have proven they can do it right, that Bush has proven that he cannot. But Tuesday, that would be the day to be in the crowd.

Ted Kennedy was, well, Ted Kennedy, doing perhaps better than I would expect, despite his voice cracking now and again. Howard Dean did less well than I expected he would--he was too quiet, maybe affected by the reaction to The Scream, but it really seemed like after the long, well-deserved standing ovation, that someone shot him with a tranquilizer dart. He just wasn't what I hoped for there.

Ron reagan Jr. did very well, on the other hand; he did not overpoliticize, instead he described the hope for stem cell research in a way very easy to understand, in a manner very convincing and bound to find sympathetic ears beyond the liberal delegates, beyond the Democratic Party. And the final speaker of the evening, Teresa Heinz Kerry, reached just as far, if not farther, in showing people who she is and who she can be. Long painted by the right-wing smear machine as a rich elitist, more recently with a foul mouth (as if saying "shove it" to a trash journalist is something most of us wouldn't long to do), she showed the strength of character that, as her son pointed out in his introduction, prompted prominent Republicans to ask her to run as a Republican for the Senate.

Teresa started off strong--"And by now, I hope it will come as no surprise that I have something to say." That drew cheers from the crowd. And then she showed her linguistic talents, and then her oratorical talents. Despite being a scripted speech, her personality shone through, and throughout you saw the warm, radiant, smart, quietly humorous woman, and understood immediately what John Kerry sees in her.

She reached out, pointing out that she came to this country from a dictatorship and understood as well as anyone how precious and important freedom is. And that freedom must apply to everyone. Here is an excerpt:

I have a very personal feeling about how special America is, and I know how precious freedom is. It is a sacred gift, sanctified by those who have lived it and those who have died defending it.

My right to speak my mind, to have a voice, to be what some have called "opinionated"... is a right I deeply and profoundly cherish. And my only hope is that one day soon, My only hope is that, one day soon, women, who have all earned their right to their opinions... instead of being labeled opinionated will be called smart and well informed, just like men.

Tonight I want to remember my mother's warmth, generosity, wisdom and hopefulness, and thank her for all the sacrifices she made on our behalf, like so many other mothers. And this evening, I want to acknowledge and honor the women of this world whose wise voices for much too long have been excluded and discounted.

It is time -- it is time for the world to hear women's voices in full and at last.

And the crowd, quieter than before, was moved by her words, showing the same reaction one can only hope some Americans will see despite the truncated network broadcasts (what a year, with such great speeches, for the acronyms to cut back!). People who saw that speech will not now be able to buy into the smears heaped on her from the right. She made the end of the evening.

But then. Oh boy, and then. Barak Obama. Speaking before Teresa, for the keynote. Nobody's gonna make fun of his name from now, much less forget it. He gave the best speech of the convention so far. He gave a real barnburner, a speech to remember, one that roused the crowd, got everyone on their feet and cheering (as you can see at right, with our Democrats Abroad Japan representatives Terri and Lauren caught in the crowd on CNN). He said what everybody was waiting for, the words not just echoing people's beliefs that there is something terribly wrong and that Kerry is the one to make it right. He gave a message of inspiring optimism, of real inclusiveness, of heartfelt Americanism, and man, can he speak the words. If you can, watch the speech in Real player here. You need to listen and watch to get the full impact. And yet, even the written form is inspiring, and though I do not often have quotes this long, this one is worth it. Read on.

On behalf of the great state of Illinois, crossroads of a nation, land of Lincoln, let me express my deepest gratitude for the privilege of addressing this convention. Tonight is a particular honor for me because, let's face it, my presence on this stage is pretty unlikely.

My father was a foreign student, born and raised in a small village in Kenya. He grew up herding goats, went to school in a tin-roof shack. His father, my grandfather, was a cook, a domestic servant to the British.

But my grandfather had larger dreams for his son. Through hard work and perseverance my father got a scholarship to study in a magical place, America, that stood as a beacon of freedom and opportunity to so many who had come before.

While studying here, my father met my mother. She was born in a town on the other side of the world, in Kansas.

Her father worked on oil rigs and farms through most of the Depression. The day after Pearl Harbor my grandfather signed up for duty, joined Patton's army and marched across Europe. Back home, my grandmother raised their baby and went to work on a bomber assembly line. After the war, they studied on the GI Bill, bought a house through FHA, and moved west, all the way to Hawaii, in search of opportunity.

And they, too, had big dreams for their daughter, a common dream, born of two continents.

My parents shared not only an improbable love; they shared an abiding faith in the possibilities of this nation. They would give me an African name, Barack, or "blessed," believing that in a tolerant America your name is no barrier to success.

They imagined me going to the best schools in the land, even though they weren't rich, because in a generous America you don't have to be rich to achieve your potential.

They're both passed away now. And yet, I know that, on this night, they look down on me with pride.

And I stand here today, grateful for the diversity of my heritage, aware that my parents' dreams live on in my two precious daughters.

I stand here knowing that my story is part of the larger American story, that I owe a debt to all of those who came before me, and that, in no other country on Earth, is my story even possible.

Tonight, we gather to affirm the greatness of our nation, not because of the height of our skyscrapers, or the power of our military, or the size of our economy. Our pride is based on a very simple premise, summed up in a declaration made over two hundred years ago, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. That they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. That among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

That is the true genius of America, a faith in the simple dreams, an insistence on small miracles. That we can tuck in our children at night and know they are fed and clothed and safe from harm. That we can say what we think, write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door. That we can have an idea and start our own business without paying a bribe. That we can participate in the political process without fear of retribution, and that our votes will be counted -- or at least, most of the time.

This year, in this election, we are called to reaffirm our values and commitments, to hold them against a hard reality and see how we are measuring up, to the legacy of our forbearers and the promise of future generations.

And fellow Americans -- Democrats, Republicans, Independents -- I say to you tonight: we have more work to do. More work to do for the workers I met in Galesburg, Illinois, who are losing their union jobs at the Maytag plant that's moving to Mexico, and now are having to compete with their own children for jobs that pay seven bucks an hour. More to do for the father I met who was losing his job and choking back tears, wondering how he would pay $4,500 a month for the drugs his son needs without the health benefits that he counted on. More to do for the young woman in East St. Louis, and thousands more like her, who has the grades, has the drive, has the will, but doesn't have the money to go to college.

Now don't get me wrong. The people I meet in small towns and big cities, in diners and office parks, they don't expect government to solve all their problems. They know they have to work hard to get ahead and they want to.

Go into the collar counties around Chicago, and people will tell you they don't want their tax money wasted by a welfare agency or the Pentagon.

Go into any inner city neighborhood, and folks will tell you that government alone can't teach our kids to learn. They know that parents have to parent, that children can't achieve unless we raise their expectations and turn off the television sets and eradicate the slander that says a black youth with a book is acting white. They know those things.

People don't expect government to solve all their problems. But they sense, deep in their bones, that with just a change in priorities, we can make sure that every child in America has a decent shot at life, and that the doors of opportunity remain open to all. They know we can do better. And they want that choice.

In this election, we offer that choice. Our party has chosen a man to lead us who embodies the best this country has to offer. And that man is John Kerry.

John Kerry understands the ideals of community, faith, and service, because they've defined his life. From his heroic service in Vietnam to his years as prosecutor and lieutenant governor, through two decades in the United States Senate, he has devoted himself to this country. Again and again, we've seen him make tough choices when easier ones were available. His values and his record affirm what is best in us.

John Kerry believes in an America where hard work is rewarded. So instead of offering tax breaks to companies shipping jobs overseas, he'll offer them to companies creating jobs here at home.

John Kerry believes in an America where all Americans can afford the same health coverage our politicians in Washington have for themselves.

John Kerry believes in energy independence, so we aren't held hostage to the profits of oil companies or the sabotage of foreign oil fields.

John Kerry believes in the constitutional freedoms that have made our country the envy of the world, and he will never sacrifice our basic liberties nor use faith as a wedge to divide us.

And John Kerry believes that in a dangerous world, war must be an option sometimes, but it should never be the first option.

You know, a while back, I met a young man named Shamus at the VFW Hall in East Moline, Illinois. He was a good-looking kid, 6-2 or 6-3, clear eyed, with an easy smile. He told me he'd joined the Marines and was heading to Iraq the following week.

And as I listened to him explain why he'd enlisted, his absolute faith in our country and its leaders, his devotion to duty and service, I thought this young man was all that any of us might hope for in a child. But then I asked myself: Are we serving Shamus as well as he was serving us?

I thought of the 900 men and women, sons and daughters, husbands and wives, friends and neighbors, who will not be returning to their hometowns. I thought of families I had met who were struggling to get by without a loved one's full income, or whose loved ones had returned with a limb missing or nerves shattered, but who still lacked long-term health benefits because they were reservists.

When we send our young men and women into harm's way, we have a solemn obligation not to fudge the numbers or shade the truth about why they're going, to care for their families while they're gone, to tend to the soldiers upon their return, and to never ever go to war without enough troops to win the war, secure the peace, and earn the respect of the world.

Now let me be clear. Let me be clear. We have real enemies in the world. These enemies must be found. They must be pursued and they must be defeated.

John Kerry knows this. And just as Lieutenant Kerry did not hesitate to risk his life to protect the men who served with him in Vietnam, President Kerry will not hesitate one moment to use our military might to keep America safe and secure.

John Kerry believes in America. And he knows that it's not enough for just some of us to prosper. For alongside our famous individualism, there's another ingredient in the American saga. A belief that we are all connected as one people.

If there's a child on the South Side of Chicago who can't read, that matters to me, even if it's not my child.

If there's a senior citizen somewhere who can't pay for their prescription and has to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it's not my grandparent.

If there's an Arab-American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties.

It is that fundamental belief -- it is that fundamental belief -- I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper -- that makes this country work.

It's what allows us to pursue our individual dreams, yet still come together as a single American family. "E pluribus unum." Out of many, one.

Now even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes.

Well, I say to them tonight, there's not a liberal America and a conservative America -- there is the United States of America.

There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America -- there is the United States of America.

The pundits, the pundits like to slice and dice our country into red states and blue states; red states for Republicans, blue states for Democrats. But I've got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the red states.

We coach Little League in the blue states and have gay friends in the red states.

There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported it.

We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.

In the end, that's what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or do we participate in a politics of hope?

John Kerry calls on us to hope. John Edwards calls on us to hope. I'm not talking about blind optimism here-the almost willful ignorance that thinks unemployment will go away if we just don't talk about it, or the health care crisis will solve itself if we just ignore it.

That's not what I'm talking [about]. I'm talking about something more substantial. It's the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs; the hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores; the hope of a young naval lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta; the hope of a mill worker's son who dares to defy the odds; the hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too.

Hope in the face of difficulty, hope in the face of uncertainty, the audacity of hope.

In the end, that is God's greatest gift to us, the bedrock of this nation; a belief in things not seen; a belief that there are better days ahead.

I believe we can give our middle class relief and provide working families with a road to opportunity.

I believe we can provide jobs to the jobless, homes to the homeless, and reclaim young people in cities across America from violence and despair.

I believe that we have a righteous wind at our backs, and that as we stand on the crossroads of history, we can make the right choices and meet the challenges that face us.

America, tonight, if you feel the same energy that I do, if you feel the same urgency that I do, if you feel the same passion that I do, if you feel the same hopefulness that I do, if we do what we must do, then I have no doubt that all across the country, from Florida to Oregon, from Washington to Maine, the people will rise up in November, and John Kerry will be sworn in as president. And John Edwards will be sworn in as vice president. And this country will reclaim its promise. And out of this long political darkness a brighter day will come.

Thank you very much, everybody. God bless you. Thank you.

Special Event

Can't say what it is yet--though if you have been monitoring Democrats Abroad Japan's web site, you'll know--but tomorrow evening should be quite an interesting time for yours truly, along with about a hundred other people associated with DAJ.

Will have full details tomorrow night.

Saturn: Front-Row Seat to a 4-Year Mission

Now that the Cassini-Huygens probe has successfully reached Saturn, we're getting even more of a grand tour of the solar system--and the Internet brings that closer to us.

Before, with Voyager and Viking, we had to wait for TV or magazines to print the images, and it was all quite short on the kind of details a real space nut like myself might want. But with the Internet, we now have a front-row view of mission control, with access to far more information than before.

With both the Spirit & Opportunity rovers and the Cassini-Huygens probe, we can see results as they come in. NASA has done the best job, not only giving us access to press releases, but to the raw images as they arrive from Saturn--and the same is true for the Mars missions as well. Now you can see far more than the media decides to print, and you can see it faster.

Below is an example: a recent view of Iapetus, though at a distance. Iapetus is a stunning moon, half of it far darker than the other. The Cassini view in B&W below almost looks like it's half in shadow, but that's the dark half, in sunlight--almost like a huge Tao symbol in the sky. And below that is another image accessed from NASA, a much clearer image of Iapetus from the Voyager missions--again, all available on their site.

At bottom is a great image of Saturn--click on the image to see the spectacular full-sized view.

And So On

Republicans have been criticizing John Kerry for not voting as a Senator. So what happened when Kerry came back to vote on a veteran's health care bill? The Republicans stopped the vote and shut down the entire Senate for a day for the express purpose of preventing Kerry from voting.

Lee Iacocca just endorsed Kerry, having endorsed Bush 4 years ago. "Not as a partisan but as an unabashed patriot," Iacocca said, "the world is changing, our country is changing, and we need a leader who will understand that change taking place." Iacocca plans to campaign hard for Kerry in Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

Showings of Fahrenheit 9/11 are sold out, often as much as a day before the premiere, in the U.S. and in Canada. While no specific date has been set for Japan's August release of the film (which now has a Japanese web site), Democrats Abroad Japan is trying to arrange a special July screening of the film here in Tokyo. I will keep you informed about what develops there. I would even like to arrange another large-group showing when the film opens nationwide in August. Expect me to be right up there at the head of the line--can't wait to see this one.

Meanwhile, don't expect to hear the official story about Cheney and his energy task force before the election. The Supreme Court sent the case back to a lower court. Of course, that doesn't mean that we don't know full well what happened: executives and lobbyists for oil, gas, and nuclear industries were let loose in the White House and allowed to shape environmental policy and direct the hiring energy and environmental officials to suit their own interests.

It looks like the non-fictional Jack Ryan may be dropping out of the Chicago Senate race. Which is really too bad, he'd have been a greater loser for the GOP. The question remains as to whether the replacement candidate which the GOP is now hand-picking in anticipation will be popular enough, and will not be hurt by the scandal preceding him or her.

Nader tells us that he is running to help liberals. But DailyKos is breaking the gathering story that the GOP is going all-out to get Nader on the ballot in as many states as possible, and that Nader and GOP staffers are socializing. Conservative groups are funding Nader and are calling up everyone on their lists to help Nader out, touting him as "a chance to stop John Kerry from winning." Doesn't sound too much like Nader is helping Kerry. Meanwhile, Democrats in Arizona think that there is a good chance Nader can be kept off the ballot there as 15,000, more than half his signatures on his petition, are invalid. At least 9,800 are invalid simply because they aren't on the voter rolls.

Almost a full year after senior White House officials vindictively exposed a CIA operative working to keep rogue nations from developing WMD so they could punish the operative's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, the grand jury has interviewed president Bush--indicating that the investigation is wrapping up and we may soon hear their conclusions. Should be interesting.

Bits and Pieces 6/20/2004

I have to blog soon on the religious dimension of this presidential election, from the Catholic church displaying hypocrisy by denying communion to Democrats who are pro-choice, but not denying the same to Republicans who are pro-choice; of denying attendance or speaking rights at religious-themed events to people like Kerry because he is pro-choice, but letting Colin Powell speak, even though he also is pro-choice. Now, the church is even telling voters that, essentially, if they vote for Kerry they'll go to hell. That, combined with Bush not only using religion as a campaign tactic and as a political weapon, but also actively seeking alliances with religious personages from ministers to the Pope, we see the church making specific choices about interfering with the political process--something dangerous for the church as much as it is for the people.

And Bush is now being told, not just by myself and other bloggers, but by senior intelligence officials, that he is not only playing right into al Qaeda's hands, but he would, without a doubt, be the candidate of choice for terrorists, could they vote. Quite a charge there. The official seems very intelligent, for s/he only publishes under the name "Anonymous"--necessary these days, since Bush & Co. have shown time and time again that if they find someone has spoken against them, they will break any law and stop at nothing to vilify and destroy them.

Meanwhile, in less political news, Hotmail is now going to offer more hard disk space with its email, too. While Google allows 1 GB, Yahoo only went as far as to offer 100 MB, and Hotmail--which was the chintziest with 2MB before, is still chintziest, expanding their offer to only 25 MB. You wouldn't think that Microsoft was one of the richest companies in the world, to see their policy.

I should add that the Hotmail 25 MB policy is only for selected users--others will have to keep putting up with the 2 MB limit on their accounts. It really comes down to not much more than a PR stunt for Microsoft, which apparently is completely unready for such an upgrade, but figures that it at least has to appear like it's doing something.

The Big Four-Zero

Funny, I don't feel any different. But then, I never did put much stock in age milestones. Transitions are far more gradual than that, and don't usually fall in step with odometer changes.

Bits and Pieces - June 7, 2004

It's hard to watch CNN recently due to their constant Reagan-o-Rama Love Fest, and I imagine it must be insufferable in the U.S. His legacy, already badly distorted by conservatives, is getting a complete whitewash due to sympathy. (Reality check here.)

In addition, one can just picture the PR team in the White House now, gleefully relieved to be free of the media attention to everything from Abu Ghraib to Valerie Plame, and busily working on how to get back control over the news cycle, putting the press on the track they want instead of focusing on all these felonies and disgraces.

---

British theaters (excuse me, "theatres") are being issued night-vision goggles so the ushers can monitor the crowd during the film and catch anyone with a video camera.

I have some experience with movie theaters, and quite frankly, I think this is ridiculous. First, they only seem to be doing this in England, which is meaningless as the "World Wide Web" is, naturally, "world-wide" and a taping made anywhere could be posted on file-sharing services and made universally available.

But more importantly, I will bet you that many if not most pirate videos are made by people working at the theaters themselves. theaters are not always well-policed, and all it takes is one projectionist to run the film during non-business hours and make a videotape of it. Projectionists always test-run new films to scan for problems in the print, and while some of these are attended by theater staff, I am certain a projectionist could get away with doing it after midnight when the manager and staff have left.

---

People are being warned not to look at the sun directly during the transit of Venus against the sun tomorrow, and I can tell you from personal experience how this is excellent advice. When I was in my early teens, and an avid astronomy buff, I wanted to watch a partial solar eclipse. I had my telescope and had applied a solar filter to the eyepiece, making it safe to view the sun through the scope (a 2.4" refractor, BTW--I got an 8" reflector later on). My father had even removed the sighting scope so that I would not accidentally look into it. And then, as the stupid young kid I was, I used the rings that held the sighting scope as a target finder and looked through them, at the sun, with my right eye, in order to align the scope. And that's how I got a blind spot just off the center of my vision in my right eye.

Fortunately, the spot is only in one eye, and when using both eyes, the left eye compensates and I don't see the spot--but if eye floaters get in the way in my left eye, or if I close my left eye, then the blind spot becomes apparent and interferes with my vision.

So I would heartily endorse the advice not to look at the sun directly, never do that; if you want to view the transit of Venus, you would need a scope for that anyway--I'm pretty sure that even using a dark plastic filter for naked-eye viewing (as some people do at eclipses), the transit would not be visible as Venus would likely be too small to see anyway. If you have binoculars, put them away--way too dangerous! And if you have a telescope, only a solar filter--specially made, not improvised--would be acceptable, and at that, learn from my example and don't look at the sun to target the scope.

Better yet, just wait for TV and web sites to publish the pretty photos.

---

Got a heads-up from Kevin Drum's column (his media link is subscription only) that the Texas GOP approved its 2004 party platform, and it's a doozy. Among the highlights:

--Support for "the traditional definition of marriage as a God-ordained, legal and moral commitment only between a natural man and a natural woman."

--Support for state legislation that would make it a felony to issue a marriage license to a same-sex couple and for any civil official to perform a marriage ceremony for a same-sex couple.

--Opposition to government action to restrict, prohibit or remove from public display the Ten Commandments or other religious symbols.

--Denouncement of "any unconstitutional act of judicial tyranny that would demand removal of the words 'One Nation Under God' from the Pledge of Allegiance."

And according to Drum's read of an Austin paper article:

A plank in a section titled "Promoting Individual Freedom and Personal Safety" proclaims the United States a "Christian nation."

....Also new this year is a section declaring that the Ten Commandments "are the basis of our basic freedoms and the cornerstone of our Western legal tradition."

"We therefore oppose any governmental action to restrict, prohibit or remove public display of the Decalogue or other religious symbols."

....As delegates prayed and sang, oversized religious images, including Jesus on the cross, were displayed on the hall's giant video screens. Christian clergymen took turns leading the prayers, some with political overtones.

Add to that the Texas GOP's vow to do away with separation of church and state, repeal the minimum wage, make it illegal for a gay person to raise a child, do away with the IRS, get the U.S. to leave the U.N., and take back the Panama Canal--but I think this stuff has been on their docket for some time.

Yes, the Texas GOP--the Party of Scary People.

Journal from Tokyo

Everyone please visit a new blogger, Masa, as he begins his blog Journal from Tokyo. He is just starting out, but feels there is a need for more Japanese to be commenting on issues in English. I'll be adding his site to the link board the next chance I get, but I wanted to alert you that it's starting. Keep an eye on the site as it evolves.

News Bits 5-30-2004

It turns out that Michael Moore has footage of Nick Berg at an Iraqi business conference in the U.S. 6 months before before he was killed, stating concerns over security in his upcoming trip, which eventually led to his death. Moore, however, decided that it would not be responsible or considerate to Berg's family to use the footage; instead, he sent the footage to the Bergs for them to view as they wished, and made the decision not to use the interview--which could have been a sensational and dramatic addition to the film.

David Berg, Nick's father said Moore handled the situation with "dignity, respect and discipline"; "Michael Moore has really been a total class act with this whole thing. He could have sold this to the media or stuck it in his movie."

In the meantime, the Weinsteins have bought "Fahrenheit 9/11" from Disney and talks are ongoing between them and several distributors, Lion's Gate and Focus Features being among the forefront. At this, I am ending my own personal boycott of Disney goods, but my opinion about the company has taken a palpable hit even so.

---

The hostage event at Khobar Towers (that place really seems to draw attacks, you gotta wonder if people have the choice of moving to another place or not) has ended, and the Saudis say that "most" of the 50 foreign hostages are now safe, suggesting that some died in the dramatic storming of the towers. The group has not yet been identified as al Qaeda, though that is what most suspect. The hostage-taking is seen as an act of desperation, as it involved the killing of Saudi security guards, and while killing Westerners is not seen as being critical, many people in the Middle East see the killing of other Arabs as crossing the line.

This crisis is yet another development in the ongoing disruption in the Middle East. As Bush tries to worm his way out without giving up anything, he is missing chance after chance of any hope of return to even the days of regular Middle East instability.

---

While the dramatically sudden climate shift and drastic temperature drops illustrated in the film The Day After Tomorrow are more fiction than science, it has been observed that some gradual and yet dramatic trends are taking place and could remake the world climate into something significantly different for our descendants. This story shows that "global dimming" is responsible for less and less sunlight hitting the ground, that the skies have darkened by 10% over the last 50 years, and it may be a natural phenomena, though some contend it is a result of pollution.

And then there is the Earth's magnetic field shift, which many scientists believe is now underway--though it may not be complete for thousands of years. Our magnetic field is dropping in strength by about 5% every century, and has been waning for perhaps 2,000 years now, and the decline is accelerating. The north magnetic pole is also not static even now--it has moved 1,100 km in the past 200 years, and most of the movement has happened in the past century. The north magnetic pole now travels at the rate of 40km per year.

The previous magnetic pole flip was 730,000 to 790,000 years ago, and scientists say that a flip every 200,000 or 300,000 years is average--so we seem to be due for one. Reversals can last between 1,000 and 28,000 years. During that time, it has been believed that the Earth would be open to solar and galactic radiation, and we would get a higher dose, increasing the incidence of cancer--though not by so much as to be cataclysmic. One positive side effect thought to be possible is the occurrence of the Aurora Borealis just about every where on Earth, most of the time, fantastic light displays on a regular basis.

A new study, however, indicates that there may be a backup system: the solar wind, which would wrap itself around the Earth and create a new magnetic field which would do about as good a job in protecting us from radiation as the Earth's present magnetic field accomplishes.

---

Smoking, it seems, is even more dangerous than we've thought. The Surgeon General released a report that says smoking "significantly harms almost every major organ of the body and has been directly linked to a new series of diseases including leukemia, cataracts, pneumonia and cancers of the kidney, cervix, pancreas and stomach."

Me, I just hat the smell. It gives me headaches, a sore throat, and makes me nauseous--and more than that, it gets into your clothes and hair after a short time and you have to shower and change just to get rid of it. So if they find that it is more dangerous and that dissuades more people from smoking, it is not a result I would mind at all.

1 Down, 9,999 to Go

"Buffalo Spammer, Don't you come home tonight..."

Introducing Blogs to my Class

Every semester, I have at least one section of an Introduction to Computers class. For the past year or so, I have added blogging to the curriculum as a way of giving students a real-world connection to Internet use as well as, I hope, an integrative motivation tool. This semester we are using Blogger (instead of Movable Type on our private site) as the tool of choice--I figure that'll be the tool of choice if they decide to blog personally, in any case.

One question I usually ask, to demonstrate to the classes how any person's blog can reach a wide number of people, is how many visitors per day they think my blog draws in. The first student I asked said "three." Okay. So I asked a second student what she thought. She looked up in thought, then counted on her fingers a bit, and finally replied, "ten thousand."

Needless to say, the actual number is somewhere in between....

This post was first generated in-class--originally much shorter due to time constraints--to demonstrate what a fully-equipped blog could do (complete with a demo of Ecto). Below is the photo of this semester's class (a small one, Spring is always light) taken so I could show everyone how to take an image from digital camera to blog site.

In the News

The media has been covering the Abu Ghraib scandal pretty much 24-7. As it should be, considering the impact it will have on (a) our soldiers, (b) the Democratization of Iraq, (c) our relations with Middle Eastern nations, (d) our relations with the people of the region, (e) our credibility and standing overall internationally, and (f) the current political election process. Although there have been many scandals and debacles (Valerie Plame, medicare, lies about WMD, etc.) that should have been enough to cause nationwide outrage, this one is certainly as appropriate as any other, as it highlights the total lack of morality in the administration. It doesn't care about the rights of people, nor does it see the value of a system where one presumes innocence before guilt. In this war, to this administration, everyone is guilty until proven innocent, and if we destroy some innocent lives in the process, well, you can't make an omelet and all that stuff. Meanwhile, the vast majority of the American population stands by and watches, or not, in the exact same way that a herd of antelope grazes nearby as a lion tears apart one of their numbers (Jose Padilla): it's OK, they didn't get me, so I can relax now.

Guantanamo, for example, was always just a way to avoid pesky human rights issues, as was the non-classification of the prisoners so as to avoid conventions and treaties, and the hiring of "civilian contractors" has always been an uneasy, unspoken-of corner of the war, essentially mercenaries outside the purview of any system of law or justice.

One case of fallout over Abu Ghraib is that soldiers have fallen under blackout. No more free communication back home, no more emails. Not because of any direct security concerns, but because they don't want those pesky G.I.'s sending out any more disturbing images, and as the situation gets worse, they don't want their people to be telling any more stories if they can help it. Retrospectively, just as news cameras helped turn public opinion in Vietnam, the G.I. with a digital camera will be seen as the modern version of that news camera in the Iraq conflict. The sad thing is, because of political fallout, the troops will be cut off from a major source of positive morale. But if it's inconvenient for Bush....

Rush Limbaugh's usually disturbing rhetoric has become even more disturbing than usual in his defense of the humiliation, rape, torture and killing or Iraqi prisoners. He has called it no worse than " fraternity hazings" which are "no different than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation" (I didn't know that Bush had been sodomized with a plunger), and that the tactics used by interrogators were "emotional release," "having a good time," "blow[ing] some steam off," "like anything you'd see Madonna, or Britney Spears do on stage," "pretty thoughtful," and "a brilliant maneuver." He adds that "Nobody got hurt. Nobody got physically injured." Good lord, do people actually take him seriously in light of what's been released, what has been shown to be true so publicly? If so, then his listeners of that persuasion must be the most feeble-minded pushovers that you would have the misfortune of encountering.

Counterspin Central makes the very salient point that Thomas Hamill, the truck driver who was kidnaped in Iraq, was treated better by his captors than Iraqi prisoners have been treated by the U.S. Counterspin also points to this historical legal decision on the matter. I gotta add this site to my regular reading list, it's a good one.

Bush, meanwhile, has been doing poorly in the polls, and may dip even more deeply in the weeks to come as the Abu Ghraib scandal continues to grow. The newest Gallup poll, taken before the prison scandal was full-blown, shows that 62% of the American people are dissatisfied with the way things are going in the U.S., with only 36% satisfied. While Bush's approval polls stay floating near 50%, every specific area people were asked about Bush shows greater dissatisfaction: economy (41% approve, 56% disapprove), foreign affairs (42% approve, 53% disapprove), the situation in Iraq (42% approve, 55% disapprove). The only item where Bush got better than 50% was on his handling of the war on terror (52% approve, 45% disapprove), but if you look at the chart, you'll see that his approval numbers are sharply dropping on that and will likely fall into the "disapprove" majority within the next two months.

This evidence is exactly what I've been talking about: that Bush's overall approval ratings are not a true indicator of how people feel about Bush, but rather how much they support the presidency in general, and how they have not yet seen Kerry enough to be interested yet. But as Kerry starts speaking out more, and as the press starts covering him more--and as his new positive-tone ad campaign gets rolling--we might see Bush's overalls dropping as Kerry's rise.

That probably only strengthens Chickenhawk Bush's resolve to smear Kerry's war record, as he did McCain's and as the GOP did Cleland's. Here's a post by Kevin Drum which shows how blatantly the Washington Times tried to mislead its readers into thinking that John O'Neill served with Kerry in Vietnam. The large-print quote reads, "I was on Kerry's boat in Vietnam. He doesn't deserve to be commander in chief" (O'Neill served on the same boat after Kerry left Vietnam, and never met him); Drum points out many things, among them that the large-print quote never actually appears anywhere in the article.

Intervention Magazine online also has good writing on the topic, starting off with a quote by Kerry: "I think a lot of veterans are going to be very angry at a president who can't account for his own service in the National Guard, and a vice president who got every deferment in the world and decided he had better things to do, criticizing somebody who fought for their country and served."

You might note, in a by-the-way fashion, that on a sidebar of the Intervention article, there is the following quote: " If Bush had demanded the same level of proof of WMDs that he demands for global warming, there would be no war in Iraq." Good one.

Opt1ng 0ut

I am currently experimenting with various methods of getting spammed. In the computer class I teach, I try to give advice about how to avoid getting spam at your email address. The advice I give includes seven basic rules:

1. Never respond to a spam email


2. Do not publish your email address on any web page, BBS/Forums or chat


3. Do not use your main email address to sign up for anything; use a throwaway account


4. Whenever you give your email address, even to family and friends,
   stress that they must never sign you up for anything, or distribute
   your email address to anyone without your permission, especially to any
   commercial enterprise


5. When choosing a hotmail or yahoo address, don't choose a short name (to avoid dictionary spam)


6. Do not use the "opt-out" link in any email you receive


7. Turn off HTML graphics in your email (they will notify the spammer that you're viewing their email)

In order to get an idea how dangerous each of these spam-catching methods are, I decided to create some throwaway accounts and try to see how much spam I could receive. I would use each throwaway email address in a unique situation, so it would be clear which method had garnered the junk mail.

#1 I will try after establishing a junk mail stream at one of the new accounts.

#2 I decided to try by putting another throwaway email address--made invisible by matching the font color with the background color--onto the main page of my blog site. Within a few days I started getting junk mail at that address.

#3 I have not gotten around to, but #4 I suffered from already when a cousin in Spain, without my permission or knowledge, signed me up for an ancestry site, clearly highly commercial. Within weeks my spam multiplied incredibly. I also have two or three throwaway addresses I use to sign up for stuff, and they get their share of spam nowadays.

#5 I had already suffered from--I had chosen a 6-letter Yahoo email ID, and immediately received about 60 emails per day right from the beginning.

And then there's #6, the opt-out. About four or five years ago--some months after my cousin signed me up for that spam-rich 'service'--I made the mistake of trying to opt out from the spam--and noted a few weeks later that my spam multiplied again.

Of course, the opt-out is most likely a trick. Spammers usually do not know if the email addresses they have are genuine; the majority are usually dead or non-existent accounts. So to get you to tell them that (a) your account is active, and even better, (b) you read your junk mail, they use tactics like the opt-out to make you expose those facts. Just like with the HTML graphics (#7), the opt-out will sound alarms that they have a live one, and more spam will likely be forthcoming, not less.

My current attempt to make them show their colors is not generating any spam yet, but it has only been a week. I searched my spam, and found various opt-out links. One of the first things I noticed was the URL that the link varied from email to email. Many of them were generic URLs that led to an opt-out page everyone would share. However, some of the opt-out links in the email I looked at had URLs that included codes--for example:

http://bilkytrpnpyh@yw21ut6.com/byebye.html

I have changed some of the specific letters and numbers in there to avoid the spammer recognizing it, but you can see the concept. See the letters preceding the @ sign? That's a code which identifies you. If you click on that link, they will know which email account the spam was sent to, no matter which address you type on their opt-out page. Not wanting to trigger even more spam at my actual email address, I decided only to use opt-outs that were generic. I've signed on to 26 different opt-put programs so far, and no spam has come back from them yet--though it has only been a week so far.

Another thing I noticed from skimming through the spam was the creativity in telling you that you can opt out. Most spam uses a unique message to tell you how to get off their lists. This is part of their attempt to evade your email's spam filter. If everyone used "To opt out, click here," for example, then the spam filters could zap every spam that comes along. So they want to avoid using recognizable text strings. Here's a list of many of the messages in the spam I got:

c1ick here - T0 0PT 0UT
click here if you would not like to receive future mailings.
cross my name off
Discon
D-I-S-C-O-N-T-I-N-U-E
Don't want anymore
Don't you like it?
Future reference options:
GetOffTheList
I don't like emails.
I don't need this
I don't think so
I want to say adios
If you do not w.ish to recei.ve these offers in the futu.re, rm You.rself
If you do not want to receive further mailings from ----, unsubscribe by sending an email
If you do not want to receive, please use this link
If you do not wish to receive e-mails from us in the future, Click here to unsubscribe.
no chance
NO MAILZ
No moore
No more ads
no more email'z
No More Please
No Thanks
No Thanks, Opt Me Out
Not interested? Please surf here
Please don't ask me again
press to stop receiving
pwzleduasese remove y{ouxrsel&f, if yo4iu would li(ke to disc"ontinue further mailing
rem ve
Remove here:
remove me
rmv
Subtract yourself here please
T o b e rem ov ed cl ic k he re
Take off
This isn't for me
To be nullified from our promotion efforts, based upon, this list please proceed forward to the following HTML based removal applicaiton for email.
to be removed click here
To be removed from further emails send email to
To modify your future contact options, please reference here
To stop future advertisement click here
ToRemoveClickHere
Unsub
We will immediatly discontinue offers... just see address below and you will not see us ever again.
You may take yourself off the l.ist he.re

Also note that some of these contain words that are broken up by spaces, hyphens, or junk characters, or replace letters with simi1@r-100king numbers or symbols.

Many have even taken the image route--not including any text at all, but instead just an image with their message on it. Most use the HTML graphics route, which has the dual advantage of getting around some spam filters as well as identifying who is reading their junk mail.

Spam really is an involved business, and I have only scratched the surface here.

Air America Radio: Teething Pains, but Growing Strong

Air America Radio (AAR) has been ordered back on the air in Chicago. AAR discovered that MultiCultural Radio Broadcasting, which owns the L.A. and Chicago stations, had been double-dipping--charging AAR for the lease on the station while simultaneously leasing it to someone else--and so stopped payment on its fees for the L.A. station until the matter could be cleared. MultiCultural, in retaliation, yanked AAR from the airwaves not just in L.A. but in Chicago as well, where AAR had continued payments. MultiCultural then released a press release claiming AAR's check had bounced, which was untrue.

So a Chicago judge ordered them back on the air in Chicago, where they are now--but L.A. remains dark while the disagreement is ironed out; it should be back on the air soon, however.

This is a minor stumble in AAR's first month of broadcasting. Right-wing critics, however, are already writing the network's obituary, claiming that is is "hypocritical and desperate"--with no evidence to support either charge, naturally--and that its ratings stink--before the ratings are even out. They try to gloss over the fact that AAR, with practically no paid PR campaign before its opening, no big rollout except that they simply went on the air, is now one of the most-visited (top 50) web sites on the Internet, and has sent out 2 million audio streams over their RealNetworks connection in just one week. On opening day, they had as many as 50,000 connections going at one time. That made it the biggest ever news stream, save for special breaking news events. And that's despite all the technical difficulties that they've been suffering in getting this going.

Soon they will be opening new radio broadcasts in San Francisco, Sacramento, Boulder, Colorado Springs, Santa Fe NM, Portland ME, and two new satellite networks. Those are just the latest additions, after Minneapolis, West Palm Beach, Riverside CA, Key West, and Plattsburgh/Burlington (NY/VT) were added in AAR's first week.

This is really the only way liberal talk radio could come out in the U.S., so dominated the airwaves by conservative owners. For example, one of AAR's top broadcasters is Randi Rhodes, the acerbic left-wing talk show host and Air Force veteran from southern Florida. Despite the fact that her show regularly got higher ratings than Rush Limbaugh in his home market, Clear Channel--the right-wing national network that broadcasts Rush Limbaugh and has been cutting Howard Stern off at the knees since he went liberal--refused to ever syndicate Rhodes despite her fantastic ratings in Florida.

When the first ratings come out, we'll see how well the network is doing in its first infant steps. But the lies spread by right-wingers about AAR's cash-flow problems are outright false--AAR has enough capital to operate for two years at least.

And remember, this station is still in its infancy. If you'll recall, the Fox network as laughed off as a joke for a few years when it first started, for many of the same reasons AAR is being knocked for now. So the show is far from over--it's just getting warmed up.

Tax Time, Japan-Style

So, you're an American living in Japan, it's past April 15th, and your taxes are still not ready? Well, don't worry about it quite yet. You get an automatic 2-month extension from the IRS, until June 15th, to file your income taxes. And if you want to, you can file for another extension after that, and usually you get it--but June 15th is enough, and filing for an extension would actually be more trouble than it's worth unless you have some unfortunate and bizarre situation going on there.

Since we all get the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion (FEIE), now at $80,000 per year, most of us unlucky enough not to earn more than that end up not paying anything in taxes to the U.S.--which is fair, because we have to pay full taxes here in Japan. But we have to file with the IRS anyway.

"But I don't owe anything, and I paid taxes to Japan, so I don't need to file." Well, we all wish it were so. But alas, you have to file no matter what. In fact, you have to file to get the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion--if you don't file, then technically you will have to pay complete U.S. taxes! So make sure you do file...

In order to file, you need Form 1040, Form 2555, a 2003 "gensen chusho" form (a small slip that documents your income and tax fess for the year) from your work, and the 2003 Annual Average Rate for the yen and dollar.

By the way, here's a news flash: As of June this year, the IRS office at the Tokyo embassy will be shutting down permanently, which sucks big-time. The person at the office said the shut-down is to save money (money that Bush has spent on Halliburton or tax breaks for billionaires). They have always been there to answer phone calls, not to mention being there to help you in person if you have problems that can't be handled by phone. So now if you need help, you have to pay international dialing rates and wait on hold for an hour and a half to talk to someone in Philadelphia who knows nothing about paying your taxes from Japan. Ah, Bush's America.

But if you want help in the next two months, then call (03) 3224-5466; press "8" as soon as you hear talking in order to avoid the mind-numbing voice mail handling, and instead get switched directly to an "assistor." If they're busy or out to lunch, then you can leave a message and they'll get back to you.

Anyway, I decided that this year I was going to explain how to get those forms done, because there is a bit of a confusing process to go through for this (it wouldn't be taxes if it weren't at least a little confusing), and I tend to forget how to do this from year to year. This explanation should help all you regular Americans living in Japan do your tax returns, although:

DISCLAIMER: I am not a professional tax preparer. I do not guarantee that any of the information or advice on this page is correct. If there are any errors which lead you to make errors, that is your responsibility.

In other words, I want to try to help you, not get sued by you. So follow my advice at your own risk. that said, here we go:

(see continuation)

First, get your gensen choshu hyo (源泉徴収票), from the accountants at your workplace. The form looks like this:

Let's say that the amount is 5,000,000 yen, for the sake of this example. Now go to the IRS page at the Japan embassy to find out the official exchange rate to calculate how to translate. If you trust me here, I'll tell you now that it is 113.873. Divide your yen income by that amount; that's your dollar income for 2003. With the example amount of 5 million yen, it comes out to $43,908.54. The Tokyo IRS office says you round to the closest dollar, so in my example it'd be $43,909. Write that number down, you'll be using it.

Now, if you've paid taxes from your current address before, you'll have gotten your 2003-1040 form book; if not, you can download the forms from the IRS at the links I showed above. The booklet, if you have it, has duplicate copies of the 1040 and 2555, which is what most people need and is what I'll be explaining how to use.

I like to start with the 2555, because there's data from that sheet you'll need to input early on in the 1040, and not the other way around. Start by filling out Part 1, with your name, address, and other info.

Don't forget your Social Security number at the top. Fill out your address and occupation, and the name and address of your employer. Ask your employer for this, because they may have a special business address for you to use. If you have filed a 2555 before, write the year you did so on 6a. It is likely that you'll check the "no" box on 6c and 8a, but check them and make sure anyway. On line 7, put your country of citizenship.

Now you choose which way you'll prove that you lived outside the U.S. There's the "Bona-Fide" test, and then there's the "Physical Presence" test. The bona-fide test is if you (a) have lived in Japan for more than one year, and (b) have a contract period longer than one year. Since most foreign workers in Japan are limited to one-year renewable contracts, the physical presence test is called for; you can skip over Part II and go straight to Part III on page 2.

I've been doing the Physical Presence test every time since I came to Japan, and I just got misdirected into doing the bona-fide test by the IRS office. Yesterday, I told them I was doing the physical presence test, and the woman acted like I was crazy, the bona-fide test is much easier! I asked her if she was sure I qualified; she asked if I'd lived in Japan for more than one year, and when I said "yes," she told me that I should really do the bona-fide. So I spent much of last night and this morning trying to figure it out, and trying many times to call the office to clear up subtle questions. When I finally got through to the IRS office (a lot of we're-busy-now hang-ups)--I think I got the same woman--I asked, among other things, about line 15a and what the contract terms were about, and she said that if my contract was for one year or less I wouldn't qualify, and would have to do the physical presence test. When I complained that yesterday she had directed me without any reservation to doing the bona-fide, she shot back, "well, maybe you didn't tell me you had a one year contract!" Yeah, lady. Thanks a lot for nothing. Good thing I worked on copies and didn't mark up my originals.

Next, if you traveled in 2003, get out your passport and figure out departure and arrival dates, and note which countries you visited on each trip; that'll be needed for the 2555. In my case, I visited Spain in April and the U.S. in December.

With this information, I can fill out the physical presence section:

Note that you only have to count the full days, days in which you are present in another country from start to finish; therefore, my Spain trip counts as 12 days, and my American trip as 18. That brings me to a total of 30--which is good, because if it is more than 35, then I have to go to some trouble to offset the one-year physical test period, and that entails more confusion.

From here, things get a bit more straightforward. On page 2, just fill in your dollar income, the same number, on lines 19, 24 and 26. You would only need to fill out other stuff if you have special financial conditions, like special reimbursements for housing, cars, meals, home leave, etc. which is not included in your income total stated in your gensen choshu hyo. Again, most people don't have this--if you do, you'll have to translate the amount into yen and add it to the total.

Then you carry your total--still my imaginary $43,909 in my case--to line 27 on page 3, the last page. You should check "no" under line 27 unless you want to claim the housing deduction--not necessary if your total will be under $80,000. So we jump to Part VII.

On line 36, I write down how many days I was in Japan--365 minus the number of full days counted in Part III, Line 18. In my case, 30 full days, making my amount for line 36 "335." Then you have to divide your number from line 36 by 365, which in my case is .918, and put that on line 37. Then multiply line 37 by $80,000. I get $73,440. That's the largest amount I can deduct. But since my total income was $43,909, I put that number on lines 39 and 40--on line 40 because it's the smaller number.

The same amount is carried to lines 41 and 43, so long as you have no special deductions--and you're done with Form 2555!

Now go to your 1040 form. Fill out your name, address and other personal information, as well as your filing status and exemptions (for me, just the "yourself" exemption).

Next, on line 7, put your income in dollars. Above the dotted line to the left of the number you just wrote, pen in the calculation that got that number--e.g., "¥5,000,000 ÷ 113.873 = $43,909."

Next, you have to add any interest or dividend income from the U.S. For example, if you have a bank account, then you should have a 1099-INT form that was sent to you from your bank listing the total interest income for 2003. If you have stock and received dividends, that must be listed also. Any taxable income of that sort has to be included here. If you do not have that information available, then there is a solution: I do not in any way comment on its legality, but you could possibly enter an amount that you are certain is greater than the amount you actually earned. Say you have a few thousand dollars in the bank at home--the interest you got was surely not more than $100. And since that is way under the minimum tax level, you could write $100.00 on the form. Whatever your number is, write that in on line 8a.

Then, on line 21, write "FORM 2555" in the blank white box in the blue zone, and write the amount of your income, from line 43 of Form 2555, in brackets (denoting a negative amount) in the number area of line 21. On line 22, you add up all the numbers, which should be the amount from 8a, as lines 7 and 21 cancel each other out. In my imaginary case here, it is $100. Since I have no special adjustments, I simply bring the total down to line 34, and then to page 2 on line 35.

On line 37, fill in 4,750 (the single-or-married-filing-separately deduction, unless you are filing married jointly). You can subtract that amount from your total on line 35, so the total will clearly be "0". On line 39, you get to deduct another $3,050 for each exemption claimed on page 1 line 6, which for me is just one, but it is moot as my amount is already zero and anything deducted will still add up to zero. And from there, it's zeroes all the way down to line 72, the amount you owe.

Sign it, seal it, and send it off.

I usually like to take it to the embassy myself, often because there's other stuff I can do there and it's not far from my work. This year I want to pick up voter registration materials, so I'll be going in early next week.

I hope this was of some help!

Bush Press Conference, 4/13/2004: Questions Part II

When asked by White House correspondent John King about the dismally small number of foreign troops and how calling them an "international coalition" is more fiction and window dressing than truth, Bush took a page out of the book using dead soldiers' honor to protect himself: "I don't think people ought to demean the contributions of our friends into Iraq." Same thing he sometimes says when people claim his war in Iraq is not justified, how dare you suggest that those soldiers died in vain--something I first heard from Reagan about the marines in Lebanon and his blunder in sending them there.

Bush actually did take this line with the soldiers in Iraq as well, saying "One of the things that's very important ... is to never allow our youngsters to die in vain. And I made that pledge to their parents. Withdrawing from the battlefield of Iraq would be just that, and it's not going to happen under my watch." In saying so, tying the soldiers' sacrifice to his own political agenda. As I've written before, this cowardly, slimy and opportunistic perversion of using the honor of those who have served and given their lives, just to protect a politician's hide and further his agenda--it makes me physically ill.

Bush also likened what is happening in Iraq to what happened in Japan after WWII--he wondered what things would have been like if we had "blown the peace" with them, and not brought Japan back in line as a responsible world citizen. Of course, three problems there: first, Iraq now is not Japan then, the two are worlds apart and the on-the-ground situations in both places are hardly comparable; second, Japan was far more necessary to attack, far more a threat to world peace, than Iraq ever was; and third, Bush is currently helping Japanese right-wingers deconstruct the post-WWII nation that we built, tearing down one of the single most important postwar imperatives, that Japan's military be oriented toward self-defense only.

Reporters tried to ask questions without Bush calling on them first; Bush smirked and said, "I've got some must-calls, I'm sorry." It did not appear that Bush had any spontaneous calls during the press conference--as it was a year ago, he likely called only from his list this time again.

When asked about whether he waited too long to confront terrorism and went too quickly into Iraq, Bush again retreated to the "we weren't on a war footing" excuse, that there was nothing we could do about al Qaeda before 9/11 changed the world--but on preemptively striking Iraq, Bush brought up Libya, which stands out as a phenomenal crock. He acted, as most conservatives do, as if Libya were intransigent and aggressive until Bush invaded Iraq, then their knees turned to jelly and they shot up the white flag in fear that Bush might catch them, too. What a pile of manure that is. Libya wanted to stop U.N. sanctions and get back into the international community, and he started with Clinton, long before Iraq was invaded. Libya offering up its paltry WMD program was simply them taking advantage of the Iraq war to make it look like they were taking giant strides to atone for past behavior and so win points that would help them out. But give up WMD because they feared Bush? That's a joke, and a bad one. Libya knows just like everyone else that America is now over-extended and cannot just go romping into Northern Africa--and we weren't even much on their case in terms of WMD. Bush's claim is a lie and a scam, pure and simple.

Then he had the gall to bring up A. Q. Khan's leaking of nuclear secrets to Iran and other countries as if that were a great example of us winning the war on terror. Beg pardon? We caught Pakistan doing this--far too late, unfortunately--and let them blame it all on one guy, and then we let them pardon the one guy. that's a victory in the war on terror? No, it's not--it's another bad joke.

This is where Bush was asked about his greatest mistake, and Bush wormed around, trying to have it both ways--both admitting to having made mistakes, but not telling what any of them were. "I hope - I don't want to sound like I have made no mistakes. I'm confident I have. I just haven't - you just put me under the spot here, and maybe I'm not as quick on my feet as I should be in coming up with one." Yeah. Sure. Amidst a list of things he went on about that he felt were not mistakes, Bush alluded to the WMD--and again justified his claims in any way he could, again bringing forth this Charlie Duelfer guy as if he were the final word in WMD, and the tired claims that somehow WMD were in there and the Iraqi people are still so terrified of Saddam Hussein that they just can't bring themselves to tell us where they are. By the end of the question, Bush had turned his answer into one for a question about how evil Hussein was and how there really are WMD just waiting for us to find them.

In his answer to Ann Compton of ABC News about intelligence reform, Bush turned and pivoted until he was saying this:

I also have this belief, strong belief, that freedom is not this country's gift to the world. Freedom is the Almighty's gift to every man and woman in this world.

And as the greatest power on the face of the earth, we have an obligation to help the spread of freedom. We have an obligation to help feed the hungry. I think the American people find it interesting that we're providing food for the North Korea people who starve.

We have an obligation to lead the fight on AIDS, on Africa. And we have an obligation to work toward a more free world. That's our obligation. That is what we have been called to do, as far as I'm concerned.

Okay, first, with this thing about God talking to him again, it may work with some but it's starting to get a lot of people worried, those at least who heard the relatively suppressed news report that Bush once stated that God told him to invade Afghanistan and Iraq.

Then there's the idea that Bush was responsible for feeding people in North Korea--that was a program started under Clinton that Republicans have attacked him for, as being too friendly and appeasing; Bush has let the North Korean situation degrade so far that a few days ago, North Korea publicly announced that Bush is "driving the military situation on the Korean peninsula to the brink of a nuclear war." And AIDS in Africa is something that Bush promised but has not followed through on. How duplicitous can this guy be and still get away with it like he does?

Finally, he called on Don Gonyea of NPR, who asked Bush if he failed as a communicator, failed to make his case. To which, Bush said we'd have to wait to see what voters say in November--and then went straight into what was obviously a well-rehearsed ending statement to wrap things up. "I hope today you've got a sense of my conviction ... the course this administration is taking will make America more secure and the world more free ... It's a conviction that's deep in my soul."

He even managed to take a swipe at Kerry, implying that a vote for him was one for leadership, and a vote for Kerry was one to shirk responsibility. Cute.

Two points I'd like to make. First: reporters are spineless. I remember a day when reporters used to respond to a president's statement with the words, "But Mr. President," and then take on the president about a misstatement or obvious obfuscation he'd made. Bush told a long string of whoppers here, and the reporters just let them slide by.

Second, the media analysis after the press conference. I had to ask myself if these people had really watched the same press conference I had. Everyone was glowing about how Bush handled himself so well, made his case so well on Iraq and national defense. My father put it in a more understandable light, pointing out that the bar has been set so low (Bush did call himself the master of lowered expectations), and Bush's more outrageous lies were on things that won't necessarily come back to bite him--for example, he could lie about North Korea, AIDS in Africa, the claims about details in WMD, or what exactly the 9/11 warnings were in terms of hijackings or using planes--that most of the public is not well enough versed to catch on to stuff like that. I agree to a point, but frankly, that's supposed to be the job of the press--to inform people on such things--and it is clear that the mainstream press is just as content to stay at the same removed, uneducated level of analysis and criticism that most Americans seem to have nowadays.

That needs to change, and I would be just as happy if that changed at the start of a new Kerry administration--so long as it continues into the next Republican administration as well. But I'm not holding my breath.

Bush Press Conference, 4/13/2004: Questions Part I

Okay, Bush clearly was looking at and calling reporters from a list, right up until the end. However, the reporters he called on did not seem like the usual right-wing bevy, at least. And there were some tough questions.

One theme, found in many questions, was to see if Bush would take up the tone of Richard Clarke and apologize, take some responsibility for what happened, and admit to mistakes. Bush steadfastly refused to do so. He didn't come right out and say "I'm not sorry for anything," but he came close. When directly questioned on whether he'd made any mistakes, he said he was sure he'd made some, but none came to mind--"I'm sure that something will pop into my head," he told correspondent John F. Robertson, in the pressure of the press conference.

It was amazingly clear how Bush wandered into and out of his scripted, practiced lines--he would be speaking eloquently one moment, but then seem flustered, lost and fumbling for words the next. It made those scripted parts sound as artificial as they really were.

He started off with some softballs, clearly lined up--question about comparing Iraq with Vietnam ("I think the analogy is false"), and for more troops to be sent (he put all the onus and responsibility on the shoulders of General Abizaid; "if that's what he wants, that's what he gets ... If he wants to keep troops there to help, I'm more than willing to say, yes, General Abizaid").

Terry Moran of ABC then asked about how Bush reconciles what we know today with his claims that "U.S. troops would be greeted as liberators with sweets and flowers; that Iraqi oil revenue would pay for most of the reconstruction; and that Iraq not only had weapons of mass destruction." Bush's first response--"He was a threat because he had used weapons of mass destruction on his own people. He was a threat because he coddled terrorists. He was a threat because he funded suiciders. He was a threat to the region. He was a threat to the United States"--was essentially a boiled-down list, the dry sediment of the many, many accusations that Bush has made before, but limited to the few precipitated accusations that can still even distantly be called true, knowing what we know today. Of course, they're full of deception--we gave him the chemical weapons to use on his own people and Reagan did nothing about it at the time, as Hussein was our friend; the terrorists he "coddled" were few, and it is unclear if any of them were a real threat to us; and I have never heard any report that Hussein actually paid his promised bounty to the families of suicide bombers in Palestine. Saddam was not much of a threat to anybody at the time, much less the U.S.

Bush then went on about how Saddam refused to disarm--well, disarm what? This seems to be an extension or variation of Bush's past claim that we wanted inspectors, but Saddam wouldn't let them in--a Bush claim that was complete fiction. The best Bush could provide in the way of evidence was a guy named Charlie Duelfer, and how this guy found the Iraqis to have been deceptive in some vague way. Bush said that Duelfer "confirmed that Saddam had the ability to produce biological and chemical weapons." A lie, of course--how did he confirm that? Even in front of a mass of reporters, Bush has the gall to make up fiction like that. We never confirmed that Hussein could do that, except in the broad sense that anyone with access to the Internet could whip up primitive chemical weapons like mustard gas in his garage.

The next question, from Elizabeth Bumiller of the New York Times, really put Bush into a tailspin. She asked, "do you feel any sense of personal responsibility for September 11th?"

Now, to understand how badly Bush fell apart at this time, you really have to see it for yourself. I'll see if I can capture this part and put it up for view. Bush's transcript goes like this:

Let me put that -- quote to Woodward in context, because he had asked me if I was -- something about killing bin Laden. That's what the question was.

And I said, you know, compared to how I felt at the time, after the attack, I didn't have that -- and I also went on to say, my blood wasn't boiling, I think is what the quote said.

I didn't see -- I mean, I didn't have that great sense of outrage that I felt on September the 11th. I was, huh -- on that day, I was angry and sad. Angry that -- al-Qaida -- I thought at the time al-Qaida, found out shortly thereafter it was al-Qaida -- had unleashed this attack. Sad for those who lost their life.

Umm... Your question, do I feel -- yes?

Bush then fell into an easier, though disengaged and choppy scripted mode, and wandered from topic to topic, of course never admitting to any responsibility, or to any error. But his overall response to this question was uncoordinated and flustered, to be generous. (Betcha they don't play that back very often on TV.) He stuck in bits and pieces of stuff he'd obviously been primed to spit out at some point: the Patriot Act is an important change, we weren't on a war footing, we were kind of stovepiped, there were gathering threats, we must do everything in our power to find these killers and bring them to justice before they hurt us again. Nothing in real response to the question, just hitting the highlights of his political agenda. The "war footing" idea he pounded home, 3 or 4 times in his speaking tonight, as an excuse as to why they didn't successfully prevent 9/11.

His fumbling continued when David Gregory followed up on the previous questions, noting that Bush never admits a mistake. Bush hemmed and hawed, brought up "war footing" again, and, of course, did not admit to any mistakes. "But there was nobody in our government," he pointed out, "that could envision flying airplanes into buildings on such a massive scale." Well, no one there must have ever read Tom Clancy. It also avoids the point that Edwin Chen of the L.A. Times brought up next, that the reports did talk about hijacking--so why didn't Bush or others do anything about airplane security? Bush first dissembled that the air threat mentioned was referring to the Genoa G8 Conference (where there were anti-aircraft batteries and Bush slept on an aircraft carrier to avoid airplane terrorism). This is wrong, because it refers to FBI information about hijackings in the U.S.

He also tried to slough off blame to the CIA, saying that Tenet was his information source, blaming the FBI, saying that their report made it seem like they were doing their job--after which, a Fox News reporter lobbed the softball that the FBI misreported the number of field investigations, to which Bush glommed on: "of course I expect to get valid information. I can't make good decisions unless I get valid information." In the previous question, Bush also parroted Rice's "move heaven and earth" quote, if only they had been told exactly when, where and how the attack was going to take place. I've commented on that red herring before.

Bush then again sidestepped a question from John Roberts of CBS about whether he'd apologize, expressing sympathy, but claiming the responsibility was Osama bin Laden's, and not the least bit his own. My own take on this is that bin Laden is like a mad dog--he'll hurt you, of course, but the dogcatcher is responsible for getting him off the streets before he bites your children. If the dogcatcher is asleep on the job, he can't go whining about how the dog was responsible for everything.

To be continued...

Back in Action Again

Okay, so I was wrong. And glad to be so.

When I dropped my Canon PowerShot 30 on the concrete floor at Costco last night, I figured that was it for old Bessy. I'd already dropped it once before (leaving the lens cover slightly off kilter), but this time I thought it was done for. Or, at least, that it would cost almost as much as the camera, or more than a few hundred dollars at least, and a week or so to repair it.

Just to make sure, I called up Canon today, and they put me in touch with their shop in Shinjuku (where I happened to be going today anyway), and it happens I know the place--their Zero-One shop on the 1st floor of the Mitsui Building. I used to go there all the time when I was working at a language school on the 46th floor of the Shinjuku Center Building across the street.

So I went in there and asked, and the guy said, "Looks like it's the optical unit. Hmm. Yeah, we can fix it." I asked him how much, and that's where the day started getting better. 12,000 yen, he said (about $115). How long will it take, I asked. "Let's see... can you come back at..." (he looked at a schedule) "... about 5:15 pm?" About two hours later. Cool.

So I went to work to drop off the grades for my three courses, just completed, and now we get a one-month vacation--and my box of Amazon.com DVDs came, with the Jurassic Park boxed set, Friends 6th season and Futurama 3rd season, among a few others. Even better. Then to the dentist--wouldn't you know, no cavities. Then back to the camera shop, pick up a working camera, and home.

The weather was lousy today--55 degrees F and overcast, while it was about 80 degrees and sunny yesterday. But things worked out a lot better today than yesterday, so I guess it evens out for me.

The photo at top right, by the way, is of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building (Shintaro Ishihara is in there somewhere), taken just outside the Canon shop entrance, to test the repaired camera.

Mt. Takao... And Probably the Last Photos That Camera Will Take

Damn.

Not about the photos, no. The photos came out really well, as they usually do with the camera. See?

No, the thing I'm upset about is my own stupidity. I was careless with the camera when I stopped at Costco on the way back. I picked my jacket up out of the cart as I unloaded it at the checkout counter, and I heard a loud, sharp CRACK! on the rock-hard cement floor. The camera had slipped out and fallen onto the concrete.

I paid for my things and set the cart aside, and when I turned the camera on there was hope--the display on the back showed the pictures I'd taken earlier just fine.

But when I turned to photo mode, the screen was black. Obviously either the CCD receptors are broken, or something connecting them to the camera is. And this is not a clumsy trinket to be casually disassembled--nor is it under warranty any more. I had it just under two years. Took thousands of photos with it, it served me incredibly well--but it should have lasted five or ten years, not less than two.

The ironic thing is, just the other night I looked at C/Net reviews to see what the current top-rated mid-range digital camera is. And guess what. It's still the exact same model that I have, the Canon PowerShot S30. If I want to replace it with the best camera of its type, I have to get the same camera--can't even get a new camera with better features. That speaks volumes for the value of the camera--and doesn't make me feel too hot about having broken this one.

I suppose I could get it repaired, of course I'll check it out--but such repairs often exceed the price of a brand-new camera, and then you have to worry about it breaking again.

Don't you hate it when stuff like this happens? Still, there is no denying it: if that's my worst problem in life, then I guess I am in excellent shape. Ah well.

2 + 2 = 9/11

Before I mention too many new developments, I very much want to reiterate one solid point: while the Bush administration did not get telegraphed the exact time, date, location and method of the 9/11, they did in fact receive more than enough information to put them on a higher alert, so that they should have asked for and seen the clearer warnings of 9/11 that never got passed up far enough for them to see--and they could have easily prevented 9/11 had they done so. I reiterate this because I see so many excuses from Bush & Co. getting far too much credence in recent days. Here's the equation:

From the beginning of the year, they were warned by Clinton administration officials that al Qaeda cells were in fact in the country. On July 6th, the CIA warned of a terrorist attack that would be "catastrophic," and that would be quantitatively different from anything that had been done to date. In late July, during the Genoa conference, they were made acutely aware of al Qaeda's plans to use aircraft as weapons. And in the now-infamous August 6th Presidential Daily Briefing (PDF file), it was made clear that there was a great deal of al Qaeda activity in the U.S., and there were hints that they were planning to hijack aircraft.

None of that equals 9/11, as Bush is desperate to point out, but here is what it does equal: they knew that al Qaeda was here, they were up to something, and it would be very bad. That much is not in question, is not challenged. So, their reaction should have been this: shake the trees. Something bad is coming guys, and we want anything and everything even remotely concerned with al Qaeda given top priority. Bush's people claim they did this, but it is incredibly obvious they did not. If they had, then two key pieces of intelligence would have fallen from the trees, namely: the Phoenix Memo of July 10, sent from Phoenix FBI agent Kenneth Williams, which reported that individuals connected to Osama bin Laden were studying at flight schools in the area, and there was "the possibility of a coordinated effort by Osama bin Laden to send students to the United States to attend civil aviation universities and colleges," and "[t]he individuals will be in a position in the future to conduct terror activity against civil aviation targets." And then, there was the August 15th arrest of Zacarias Moussaoui in Minnesota, a man with jihadist connections who was training to fly commercial jets, but with no prior flying experience and no explanation of how he got his funding or why he was in the U.S. And it's not like the agents involved weren't stressing the intel enough.

That's what Rice would have seen: two reports within one month of potential terrorists attending flight schools in the U.S., with reports elsewhere that bin Laden was (a) thinking of using airplanes, and (b) planning a "catastrophic" attack on the U.S.

That would have been more than enough for Rice to look at and say, "hmmm, let's maybe send some FBI agents out to all the other flight schools around the country and see if there are any suspicious, Middle-Eastern flight school students with possible terrorist links." From there, it would have taken only a few days to find the majority of the suspects, go to high alert, investigate the suspects, give warnings to airports and law enforcement agencies nationwide, and well before 9/11, slap their asses in jail. No 9/11.

This method was proved in the millennium terror attempts, and the perfect job that Clinton's people did in preventing all of the al Qaeda attacks in Seattle, Los Angeles, Boston and New York. Sure, the one Seattle customs agent Rice pointed to got lucky, but (a) only because she was warned and directed to look for something in a way that Rice never warned FBI agents to do, and (b) that was only one of many attacks that were foiled by the tree-shaking which Richard Clarke described.

"But we didn't have enough time to get things set up," the Bush people whine, "233 days wasn't enough time!" Bull. A few weeks would be all that it took. A massive reorganization of the intelligence community would have been nice (though Bush & Co. were against homeland security and were cutting counter-terrorism funding), but that wasn't enough to keep the government from working--as Clinton's people showed us in the millennium terrorist roll-up. The FBI was in place, Clinton's experienced counter-terrorism people were still there, trying to tell the Bushies to do what they should have done, and the Bush people were in place. Time is not what killed the making of the connection. It was the lack of will to focus on terrorism, the plain dearth of common sense. There was more than enough time.

"But we never got warnings in the form of giant, flashing neon signs that told us the time, date, flight numbers and methods of the hijackings!" the Bush people cry desperately (and repeatedly). Well, if that's what you need to stop a terrorist attack, then we are in deep shit, because you never get that kind of detailed information in the real world. This excuse is the worst of all, because it is so ridiculous, so pathetic beneath the false formica veneer of its surface, that there is no doubt whatsoever that Rice and Bush know that they are misleading the people, desperate enough to use such a lame excuse because it's all they've got. As I have laid out above, there was more than enough warning. All the pieces were there. It would not have been hard at all to put them together without the benefit of hindsight; all it would have taken was basic competence to put 2 plus 2 together. But because Bush & Co. were do damned focused on missile defense, because terrorism was antithetical to that agenda, and because they were so keen to diss anything even smelling of Clinton, they failed to do what they needed in order to get that second "2" of the equation, and so they failed to add the pieces together. As a result, the terrorists walked right past the otherwise-engaged Bush administration, right onto the airplanes and committed their atrocious act.

There is no excuse folks, and don't let any of the Bushies tell you otherwise.

We Were Warned

As I mentioned before, one thing that was clear in Rice's testimony was that she wanted to bring the point home on a set of talking points, repeating them several times so that they were certain to make the sound-bite reel. Ones that stood out included that Bush met with CIA chief and other principles almost every day; there was no "silver bullet" that would have stopped 9/11; there were "structural problems" that were the real cause of the problem (she mentioned this a few dozen times); the August 6th PDB was "historical" in nature, not a warning; that Clarke was responsible for a lot (implying that he was more to blame), and the like.

But the one point that stuck out to me was the idea that the Bush administration was not at fault because there was no specific warning about 9/11, that we did not get the specific date, time, location and method of the attack. Commission member James R. Thompson (R) repeated that, saying that we didn't know "when where and how" the attacks would come. The attacks were too vague, Rice pounded home.

I mean, come on. If we can only stop attacks if we have the exact plans telegraphed to us, then we are in huge trouble. It's a shameless red herring, saying that we didn't have good enough intel.

Let's review what we did know.

• On January 25th, Clarke told Rice that there were al Qaeda sleeper cells in the U.S., and gave warnings that al Qaeda was the greatest terrorist threat facing the U.S.


• In the summer of 2001, the FBI uncovered the fact that al Qaeda operatives were in the U.S., and were planning an attack using airplanes, according to Sibel Edmonds.


• On July 6th, the CIA warned of a terrorist attack that would be "catastrophic," and that would be quantitatively different from anything that had been done to date.


• On July 10th, Phoenix, AZ FBI agent Kenneth Williams reported that individuals connected to Osama bin Laden were studying at flight schools in the area, and there was "the possibility of a coordinated effort by Osama bin Laden to send students to the United States to attend civil aviation universities and colleges," and "[t]he individuals will be in a position in the future to conduct terror activity against civil aviation targets." [this point added in edit]


• On July 20-22, Rice and Bush were both at an economic summit in Genoa, Italy, where there was specific intelligence about bin Laden using jet liners to attack the summit; the threat was taken so seriously that there were anti-aircraft batteries deployed in the city, and Bush spent the night on the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise.


• On August 6th, the PDB was titled, "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States."


• On August 16th, Zacarias Moussaoui was arrested in Minnesota on immigration charges, a man who had jihadist connections, who had been in a flight school in Minnesota trying to learn how to fly a commercial jetliner despite having no prior training, had no explanation for the funds in his bank account, and no explanation for why he was in the United States. The Minnesota FBI was trying to pursue the matter, pushing a reluctant Washington FBI bureau.


• And on September 4, Richard Clarke sent Rice a memo warning Rice "to imagine a day after hundreds of Americans lay dead at home and abroad after a terrorist attack."

And that's just the warnings that we've been told about. Clearly, there could be and probably are warnings that are still classified and hidden by the Bush administration (like the August 6th PDB, the title of which was classified until yesterday).

Knowing all of this, it becomes all but impossible to imagine that the September 11 attacks were not preventable. It is a fact that from the start, the Bush administration did not take the terrorism threat very seriously, the put major emphasis on missile defense, and just before 9/11 they cut counter-terrorism funding.

However, if Rice and Bush had taken the threat seriously from the start, alerts could have been put out to intelligence agencies to be alert for anything possibly related to this (as commission member Gorelick pointed out, they were not given any such warnings or instructions). In July, Rice had sufficient warnings that something was coming along, such that if she had "shaken the tree" in earnest, if she had told the FBI and CIA to go on high alert and pass on all warnings, they would have learned about the Edmonds tapes, and would have known something big was coming--and then Zacarias Moussaoui would have stuck out like a gigantic sore thumb. With him, they would have had a potential terrorist training for jet piloting; that would have led them to check pilot training schools across the U.S. for others like him, they would have found most of the other hijackers, and could have rolled up the entire operation with weeks to spare.

This is not pie-in-the-sky or pure hindsight, this is real information that could have been passed on, and probably would have been under Gore because he would have carried on with Clinton policies that called for this kind of thing.

We were warned. We did have information specific enough to lead us to find the terrorists. This was not an inevitable attack. Rice screwed up. Bush blew it. It's as simple as that.

C-Section Contrast

I don't usually blog on this topic, but the synchronicity of these two stories struck me as interesting.

First we have a woman from Utah who, when told it was necessary by her doctors, refused to undergo a C-section to give birth to her twins. Finally, she did undergo a C-section, but because of her delay, as well as the drugs in her system, one of the children was stillborn. Now, I believe her when she says that she did not avoid the C-section because she didn't want the scar--apparently she had had two C-sections before--but certainly she was negligent to ignore the doctors' advice (unless claims of mental incompetence are true, which I sort of doubt in a very uninformed way), and more so for using alcohol and illegal drugs, which even a person who is relatively incompetent should know is not kosher.

But the interesting contrast comes from a story from Mexico, where a woman not only had a C-section to give birth to a healthy child (she had lost a previous child in labor), but--because the baby was not coming naturally, and because she was 8 hours from a hospital, in a rural area with no electricity and no clean water--and I presume also there was no one else present or willing to do it--she performed the C-section on herself with a kitchen knife after downing three small glasses of tequila. Now that is an amazing feat, and demonstrative of what lengths a parent will go to in order to preserve a child. That woman deserves a medal.

Daylight Savings

For Americans living in Japan, please note that DST took effect yesterday in the U.S., so the times have shifted. Remember to add that extra hour when you translate times--or to subtract the hour if you count backwards when you translate.

I don't like using the "count backwards" 16- or 17-hour (west coast, PST) subtraction method of figuring out the time difference between here and there; 16 and 17 hours is a bigger number to subtract, and more often you cross day lines and it gets confusing, making errors that can wake your relatives up at unfortunate hours.

I prefer to add 7 or 8 hours (again, PST), then subtract a day. Two steps, separate, a lot easier to do. So right now, it's 11:40 am on Monday in Japan. Add 8 hours (now that DST has kicked in; last week, it was 7 hours), making the time there 7:40 pm--and that by itself is often enough, the day of the week is not important, in my family at least. But if necessary, just subtract a day, and you get 7:40 pm Sunday in San Francisco.

I suppose it is less of an issue if the people you're calling are on the east coast, and the difference is to add 11 hours or subtract 13 (10 and 14 when DST is not in action). But I still prefer the addition method.

Speaking of which, when is Japan going to get DST? The sun comes up at 4:30 am in the summer, way earlier than most people need. Great for the farmers, who had a controlling block of votes many years back (I wonder if they still do?), but lousy for the rest of us as it means early darkness and wasted sunlight. And I'm a late owl, and on my late-late nights I go to sleep as the sun rises, which feels strange. I remember on my visit to Spain last April, they not only had DST ("summer time" in Europe), but Spain was on the west edge of a wide time zone--the sun set at about 9 pm. Maybe not great for early risers, but I thought it was terrific.

Microsoft and Justice (long post)

In 1998, Microsoft did something that was widely protested: it tied its browser software to its operating system. This was part of Microsoft's strategy to dominate the browser software market, and the trigger for a massive lawsuit by the U.S. government and many states against the software giant on antitrust grounds. While that suit was sabotaged in the end, a similar action is now entering a promising phase in Europe--but must first withstand similar attempts at sabotage. First, a bit of background.

Let's go back in time a little. The first event of note happened at the beginning of the 80's, when the Apple ][ computer dominated the PC market. IBM wanted to do that, so they created a new computer, the "IBM PC," that would do the trick. When they went looking for an OS, they turned to Bill Gates, who was doing other work for them. Gates bought an operating system, Q-DOS, from another firm for $50,000 and presented it to IBM with the new name "MS-DOS" slapped onto it. But Gates did not want to simply sell it to them for a quick profit; he wanted to license it to them, allow them to include it with their computers for a fee, with Gates retaining ownership. IBM execs decided that the computer hardware was where the money was, and so they agreed with Gates' request. That is now remembered as one of the most idiotic decisions in recent business history. Microsoft based their success on the ownership of that operating system.

One thing should be noted about Microsoft, and that is their quick & dirty approach to capturing a market. When a competitor comes out with software which Microsoft wants to dominate, it produces its own version as quickly as possible. The product is, at first, of extremely poor quality, and only becomes truly workable after several upgrades. One example of this is Microsoft's operating system itself.

In 1993, when Apple released the Lisa (the precursor to the Macintosh), it became a public matter that Apple was switching to the GUI (Graphics User Interface), which used windows, icons and menus as visual metaphors for controlling the computer, as opposed to the text interface used by MS-DOS and other OS's, which depended on specifically-typed and hard-to-learn text commands in order to operate. The GUI made it possible for anyone and their grandmother to use a PC. When Microsoft saw this happening, they knew they had to come out with a GUI OS as well, or wither and die. But there was not enough time to create a GUI OS from the ground up, so Microsoft slapped together a sloppy and barely workable GUI on top of MS-DOS. The sloppiness showed, and for many years, the OS was far inferior to the Macintosh, which premiered with a GUI in 1984. Eventually, however, after several revisions, MS Windows became more acceptable, but not until the 90's. It took at least a decade for Microsoft to finally produce a ground-up GUI OS to take over the heavy lifting for MS-DOS, and that was Windows NT. While MS-DOS remained the center of Windows Home versions until 2001 (Windows 95, 98, and Me), NT took over completely when Windows XP was released. Along the way, they stole the best features of the Mac's OS and made them their own.

So one might wonder, how come in the first several years, Microsoft captured so much of the market with an inferior OS? The main reason for that was IBM's strategy for their platform, the IBM PC. While Apple computers are proprietary and can only be produced by Apple (save for an abortive experiment with clones some years back), the IBM PC was, from the start, open for any company to produce. So companies that wanted in on the market found the IBM PC (now just called "PC") platform the way to go, and the intense competition and widespread production kept prices down, a necessity for many businesses. That, combined with Apple's loss of direction while Steve Jobs was away, allowed the PC to dominate the market. And Microsoft dominated the PC.

That dominance is what has brought criticism of Microsoft, because of the way they use it. Microsoft does not only make the operating system, it also produces Microsoft Office (Which includes software for word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, scheduling and database), a browser, email, a music and video ("multimedia") viewer, and others (such as Publisher for DTP and FrontPage for web page design). On the PC platform, Microsoft has many competitors for application software of that type--and those competitors have long cried foul over Microsoft's oppressive tactics.

The Windows OS has been a cornerstone of those tactics. Since Microsoft controls the OS, it can use that control to give their application software an edge over competitors. Imagine if one business owned a shopping center, and rented out most of the space to other businesses, while keeping its own stores as part of the mall. Those mall-owned stores would be competing with other stores in the shopping center trying to sell the same goods. The business which owns the shopping center would have an unfair advantage over all the other shops. It could give the best locations to its own shops and make the other businesses operate in hard-to-find locations with little traffic. It could control the messages displayed on the main marquee of the mall, using it to advertise only its own stores. It could put bus stops and walkways so they led consumers to their own shops and away from other shops. It could keep information about the complex's infrastructure (phones, electricity, water, etc.) secret and so control other stores' use of those facilities.

You might ask, why don't those stores just move to another mall? The answer is, because this is the mall that 95% of all people visit.

These are the kinds of things Microsoft does. Microsoft's own software is featured in their OS to the exclusion of other companies' software. Why do most people use the Internet Explorer browser? Because that's what is on their desktop when they get the computer. An amazing number of people do not even know that other browsers exist. The OS and browser software together tend to steer people towards Microsoft's products and services and away from those of others. And Microsoft keeps the source code of the OS a heavily-guarded secret, which allows their software to work smoothly with Windows, while other software by third-party companies struggles to keep up--not because of inferior design, but because Microsoft jealously guards the ability to interoperate with the OS so that they can stay on top.

Okay, another bit of history. In 1993, Marc Andreeson invented a new kind of software: the browser. The program that you use to view web pages, the one that practically started the entire Internet revolution and boom of the 1990's. The first one he created at the University of Chicago, and it was called Mosaic. But then Andreeson started his own company and presented the Netscape browser. For many years, Netscape was the browser, the most popular, the gold standard.

Microsoft wanted to take that away from them. They created Explorer, and used their dominance of the Desktop to put Explorer before everyone's cursor, meaning that anyone who wanted Netscape would have to (a) learn about it, and (b) go to the web site and download it. This was a huge disadvantage.

But in 1998, Microsoft went even further: they integrated the Explorer browser directly into the Windows Operating System. Open a folder in any Windows OS since Windows 98 (98, Me, 2000, XP). With standard settings, you should see an address bar, just like in a browser, and have the option to list Internet links in the toolbar of the window. Select the Tools menu and choose "Options," and you'll have the ability to enable browser-style or classic windows, even make files and folders appear like Internet hyperlinks, blue and underlined, which open with a single click. These and other browser features became an integrated part of the Operating System--meaning that you couldn't remove them. And without removing them, Microsoft's Explorer browser was even more ensured to remain the browser everyone used. Netscape, once the king of browsers, and with better features and operability than Explorer, lost the war. People stopped using it, not because it was worse, but because Microsoft abused it's ownership of the Desktop and so pushed it into obscurity.

Today, Microsoft does the same thing with Windows Media Player, the app most people now use to play music and video files. Just like Explorer, it is the default player because Microsoft owns the Desktop and puts it, and nothing else, there.

So in 1998, the Justice department under the Clinton administration, with the cooperation of many state governments, initiated legal action against Microsoft. In 2000, a judge came very close to ordering Microsoft to be split in two--one company for the Windows OS, another for the application software, and Gates could only retain one. That possibility was temporarily set aside when a appeals court decided that the judge who handed down the initial verdict had tainted the proceedings by speaking about it to the media. The government still had the potential to ask for the breakup again with another judge, and had a good chance of winning. But then something happened which saved Microsoft's bacon.

Bush got elected.

Microsoft contributed much to both parties, spreading the money around, but that didn't work with Clinton. It did, however, with Bush, who got more donations from Microsoft than anyone else, and when bought, stays bought. Ashcroft was similarly a large Microsoft benefactor. Just five days before 9/11, John Ashcroft suddenly declared that the government would not ask for Microsoft to be split in two, a threat seen as the most potent weapon with which to make Microsoft behave. Ashcroft also ruled out forcing Microsoft to reveal its most important source code and letting other software vendors work on an even playing field. He also decided to allow Microsoft to continue bundling its own software with Windows and excluding other companies' software. He nixed the plan to have a technical committee be a watchdog to see that Microsoft was following the settlement, and instead allowed Microsoft to police itself. It only demanded weak sanctions which were made almost toothless by vague language which Microsoft was able to weasel around. Even these weak sanctions would only last for five years.

Why did Ashcroft decide to unilaterally surrender all of his leverage and essentially surrender the case completely? According to Ashcroft's DOJ, it was in order to "streamline the case with the goal of securing an effective remedy as quickly as possible."

Well, Bush and Ashcroft may have been bought, but the rest of the world hasn't. While Asian countries mull over what to do, the European Union has taken action: this week, EU trade regulators judged that Microsoft had violated antitrust laws in Europe, and declared that Microsoft would be fined $612 million, would be forced to sell a version without its own software loaded up front, and would be required to reveal its source code to competitors; and that a non-Microsoft committee would oversee the enforcement of those penalties. In other words, the EU did what Bush and Ashcroft sabotaged, short of being able to split Microsoft into two companies.

Well, Microsoft spent their money well, with ten congressmen, including prominent Republicans (Senate Majority leader Bill Frist and head of the Foreign Relations Committee Senator Richard Lugar) immediately pronouncing that the EU is headed towards a "trade war" if it carries out these sanctions.

A trade war? Because the EU didn't get bought? Because they fined a company for antitrust and were right? How would this stifle U.S. trade at all? If anything, U.S. companies other than Microsoft have everything to gain from this, and it could open up a more competitive computer software market with great benefits to the industry and to consumers as well. But instead, the U.S. is going to engage in a damaging and expensive trade war in order to allow Bill Gates to keep his monopoly intact?

And don't expect anything to happen soon. Microsoft immediately filed an appeal, and it will probably be five years before anything is decided--and it could drag on longer than that.

Web Pages to Visit

One interesting site you may want to look at is the Fundrace 2004 Neighbor Search, which allows you to type in a name or a ZIP code and then get a list of people who donated money to political campaigns, with their address (though many use their business address). It is a bit discouraging that you have to make that information so public (you undoubtedly will get blasted with requests for donations once the fundraisers, and not just political ones, get your name and address), but I suppose that's the price you pay for protecting the system against massive anonymous, illegal donations.

The site also features great maps showing the geography of the donations, sortable by amount, candidate and so on, with the maps detailed by county, area, and state.

---

Another site to look at is Iraq on the Record, a database on the House of Representatives site, which allows you to search through a comprehensive listing of 237 different false or misleading statements made by Bush, Cheney, Powell, Rice, or Rumsfeld, sortable by subject, keyword, and date. For example, Bush claims he never said Iraq was an "imminent threat," right? Well--

Today the world is also uniting to answer the unique and urgent threat posed by Iraq. A dictator who has used weapons of mass destruction on his own people must not be allowed to produce or possess those weapons. We will not permit Saddam Hussein to blackmail and/or terrorize nations which love freedom."

Source: President Bush Speaks to Atlantic Youth Council, CNN (11/20/2002).

"On its present course, the Iraqi regime is a threat of unique urgency. . . . it has developed weapons of mass death."

Source: President, House Leadership Agree on Iraq Resolution, White House (10/2/2002).

Unless you want to make the losing argument that "urgent" is not synonymous with "imminent," it looks like Bush was lying. What a fun database!

---

You might also want to use Wikipedia for an information source in the future. Wikipedia is a free, open-source encyclopedia, and is very helpful on a wide range of topics, with 230,000 entries so far. "Wiki-wiki" is a Hawaiian word meaning "super fast," and when used to refer to a web site, means a collaborative project like Wikipedia, where anyone can contribute to the content of the site. Disinfopedia is the "propaganda" version of Wikipedia.

---

If you want to keep track of Bush's job ratings, you can visit RealClear Politics or Polling Report.com. RealClear has a much nicer format and is easier to distill information from, whereas Polling Report has more raw data. Pollkatz has a great compilation of polling over time, with good charts--but their data has not been updated for two months or so.

---

And finally, for those of you who enjoy conspiracy theories, this page will keep you pretty busy. It gives a very highly detailed, heavily sourced account of Flight 93 on 9/11, the plane that crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. The administration's answers about this ("we didn't shoot it down") just don't match up with the facts, which demonstrate, for example, that the cockpit tape recording played for the families cut off three minutes before the recorded time of the crash. A lot of good material there, very well put together. I have to say that I do not believe that Flight 93 crashed because of the struggle in the cockpit--the engine landed intact a mile away, indicating that it was shot down; paper debris was found miles from the crash site, too far to have been blown there from the crash. One passenger called 911 claiming to have heard an explosion and seen white smoke coming from the wing; after the call was mentioned to the press, the 911 operator was immediately shut up and not allowed to speak about the matter, the records labeled confidential and never shown publicly, and the government now denies it ever happened.

It is also interesting to note that Bush admits giving Cheney authorization to shoot down the plane. It is my guess that they did exactly that, and then lost the nerve to admit it to the public. Call me a conspiracy nut, but it fits the facts, as well as this administration's willingness to hide actions they don't want people to see (can you tell me what happened at Cheney's energy policy meetings? No? There you go).

Maxx Power

I have been quite remiss in in my neglect until now to mention and link to Justin Faulkner's Maxx Power site. Justin has been a long-time contributor of valued comments here, and the site he runs has great commentary you should take a look at, regularly. His posts are extremely well-informed, and better detailed than my own. You can find a permanent link on the LinkBoard to the right. Sorry not to get to this before now, Justin.

Mars on the Desktop

NASA has recently come out with a spectacular panoramic image of the Bonneville Crater, with startling resolution and quality. I now use the image for my Desktop, and suggest that you do as well. If you click on the image in this entry, you will see the full-size 1280 x 854 image I am using now (slightly enhanced from the NASA version). If you would like to get different image sizes, let me know and I'll see what I can do. I just love this image for so many reasons, not the least of which is the small but startling piece of metal debris in the upper left corner, startlingly out of place and for a moment evocative of something artificial and alien--which it is, in a sense, being the remains of Spirit's own heat shield, as alien to Mars as anything can be. But the entire vista, the hills in the background, the amazing detail of the rocks in the foreground--this is a great view to see out your window every day. I just love it.

500th Post

You may wonder at the 500th-post claim because the permalink contained in the date for this entry says "516," but that counting includes test posts I did early on which have since been deleted. So this is #500, and is coming close to the first anniversary to this blog, which will be April 6th, a year after I posted to mention how hard it could be for the uninitiated to set up a blog. But I was also posting about my upcoming trip to Spain, which took me off the air for a few weeks. My real blogging got started in late April after I returned from the trip, and has become a routine for me--especially since August 2 of last year, when I made a resolution to blog at least once each day (231 consecutive days and counting).

Things have changed since I started. After my first full month of blogging, the average number of visitors per day was 22, with a grand monthly total of 442 unique visitors. In the past ten days, my average number of visitors per day was 403, and as of the year to date, I have been averaging about 5400 unique visitors per month. Quite a lift up, though recently the numbers seem to have reached a kind of plateau.

If you are a regular reader of the site, then you are aware of the fact that this site has become a tourist attraction for eyelid twitchers, after a very early post on the topic drew an amazing number of Google hits (I'm presently #2 on Google for that search term, and at least 20 people a day come from search engines looking for information on that topic). Making gyoza is next most popular, with a recent surge of a few dozen Indonesian women from the IndoUSAcouples forum. My review of Mac OS X v. 10.3, a.k.a. Panther, is still drawing lots of hits, after its debut drew the first link from MacSurfer.com that I received--one which brought 8,000 visitors to the site in just two days. And my blog about Christmas in Japan is still getting hits from a prominent mention in the Japan Times several months back.

Running a blog, it seems, can bring you into the public eye in unexpected and often quite interesting ways. The MacSurfer flood was completely unexpected, and checking the stats for the site are kind of like unwrapping a present--you never know what's going to be in there. And yeah, it's narcissistic to a certain degree, I'll grant you that. But narcissism can be so fun!

I should also take the time to thank people who have me on their blogrolls, where many of my visitors also come from: Mark at VuDeja, "K" from Kinuk.co.uk, Nils at Alive in Kyoto, Tim at ChariOtaku, and Kurt at his Hmmn blog at Easterwood. Many of these are linked through the Japan Bloggers Webring, which also sends readers this way via their members list. Thanks also go to Kristen, whose blog made me aware of what is possible in blogging, and to Sako Eaton, with whom I have started the xpat.org web site, designed for North American expats who want to comment on politics and social issues (we're always open to new contributors--leave a comment with an email address and I can tell you how to join).

Meanwhile, back on BlogD, the latest comment (#569) was left by Latisha, who read the comments on the ancillary eyelid twitching post, and tells us that she started sharing our malady when her husband left for Iraq 3 weeks ago. Our hopes and prayers go out to you, Latisha, and we hope your husband returns to you safe.

That's Not Chorizo

When I was a kid, my mom used to make Caldo, a meat and vegetable stew, for my dad. My favorite part was the chorizo (the "z" pronounced as "th"), the smoky, spicy sausage. When I went to Spain a year ago, I went chorizo crazy--I had to get as much of it as I could while the getting was good. I even took three full-sized chorizo back with me to Japan, along with three large cans of pimenton, the spice that gives chorizo its signature flavor.

Well, the chorizo didn't last too long, though I was able to restock the pimenton during my visit home last December. And there is a Spanish restaurant I found in central Tokyo which serves good Chorizo (Spain Club, Tsukishima 1-14-7. Open noon-2:30, 5:30-10pm daily. Phone: 03-3533-5381). But other than that, good chorizo is hard to find.

Take what you can get at the supermarket, for example. In Spain, a good market would have a large meat section, where they have all sorts of spiced meats hanging, for sale by slice or sausage roll. Here in Japan, whatever there is in that area is not only vacuum packed in plastic but is also mighty tame in comparison, at least in most supermarkets.

And they do sell chorizo. Or at least what they call chorizo. But you know, it just ain't chorizo. Pales terribly in comparison with the real thing. I mean, just look at it, here on the left. It's just plain sausage with a little spice. Not the same thing at all.

I gotta get me back to Spain sometime. I've got a real Chorizo Jones going here.

Now, this is real chorizo, on the plate and in the store, in Spain.

B.L.O.G.D.: Biomechanical Lifeform Opt